Four Bucket List New England Cross Country Ski Towns
XCSkiResorts.com recommends these classic New England towns and areas for a cross country ski vacation:
Stowe, VT, is quintessential New England with its white steepled church and main street lined with stores.
Source: Trapp Family Lodge
- It’s also the home of the Trapp Family Lodge of Sound of Music fame. Trapp Family Lodge has a 110 km trail network with 60 km of groomed and machine-tracked trails. Stowe has a full range of dining and shopping options. Other nearby XC resorts include Bolton Valley, Stowe Cross Country Center, and Edson Hill.
Woodstock, VT is another winter mecca with inns, restaurants, unique shops, and a national historical park.
- The Woodstock Nordic Center operated by The Woodstock Inn & Resortoffers two trail systems right in town covering more than 45 km. The Mount Peg trails begin on the golf course at and climb to the summit overlooking the village below. On nearby Mt. Tom, the Center grooms more than 20 km of trails on old carriage roads in the midst of Vermont’s first tree farm and Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park.
The Mt. Washington Valley in the White Mountains of New Hampshire has some of the best cross-country skiing in the East.
- “Enchanting” is the best word to describe Jackson, the paragon of New England towns and home to Jackson Ski Touring Foundation, a non-profit organization chartered to provide and maintain XC trails on more than 80 private properties and national forest. Country inns are scattered throughout the region. The base lodge is accessed through a scenic covered bridge.
Covered bridge at Jackson Ski Touring Center, New Hampshire Photo: Roger Lohr
- Great Glen Outdoors at the base of Mount Washington is a magnificent setting with 45 kilometers of XC skiing, snowshoeing, and an ol’ fashioned tubing hill. Great Glen’s scenic trail system offers an enjoyable combination of well-protected spruce and fir-lined trails plus wide-open areas with breathtaking views of Mt. Washington and surrounding peaks. On the trails is the classic New England Glen House Hotel, with 68 rooms, a pub and restaurant. For even more adventure, enjoy a comfortable winter tour on the 9-passenger Mt. Washington SnowCoach, which transports guests to an unforgettable journey to a sub-Artic world on Mt. Washington.
Skiing at Bretton Woods, NH Photo: Roger Lohr
- Bretton Woods Nordic Center is a thriving cross country ski center on the grounds of the Omni Mt. Washington Hotel. It. The grand Bretton Woods hotel has 100 km of XC ski laced throughout 1,700 acres of spectacular scenery. The Mountain Road, accessed via a lift at the Bretton Woods alpine ski area, offers spectacular vistas of Mt. Washington from a 7 km groomed trail down to Route 302.
Bethel, Maine is home to the Bethel Inn and Carter’s XC Ski Center, and Sunday River Resort’s alpine ski trails. The town settled in 1774, retains its small-town lifestyle.
Bethel Inn Resort , Bethel, ME
- The XC ski trails, which meander through forest to a picturesque, covered bridge are canine friendly. Several inns along the trails are operated by the nonprofit Bethel Inland Woods and Trails organization. The Carter’s XC Ski Center has beautiful views of the Mahoosuc and Presidential mountain ranges. Alpine skiing, dogsledding trips, and snowmobile rentals are available nearby.
Many businesses in each of these New England ski towns organize special events on winter weekends and vacation weeks to encourage people to get out and enjoy the snow.
If you’re into XC skiing and keep a bucket list, Stowe and Woodstock, VT, the Mt. Washington Valley, and Bethel, Maine are classic New England destinations not to be missed.
Skiing History Magazine
Covid-related delays at the printer and post office caused the November-December issue of Skiing History to mail a month late. The online version posted right after Thanksgiving, and you can read it here. Here’s what you’ll find:
Aspen’s Anniversary: 75 years ago, Aspen built its first chairlifts and opened for business. Most of us are familiar with the story of how racing champion Friedl Pfeifer returned as a wounded veteran of the 10th Mountain Division and forged a partnership with Chicago industrialist Walter Paepcke to form the Aspen Skiing Company. In this issue, Aspen-based writer and editor Cindy Hirschfeld tells the story of the locals who surveyed the ground, cut the trees, dug the footings, hauled and poured the concrete, assembled the towers, hung cables and chairs, and then ran the lifts and ski school.
100th Anniversary of Megève, the first purpose-built resort in France. When the Baroness Noemie de Rothschild took a break from running a military hospital during World War I, she went skiing at St. Moritz. There she bumped into the German arms-maker (and notorious antisemite) Gustav Krupp. She swore to build an all-French resort, and in December 1921 opened her Hotel Prima in this medieval village just off the main road from Geneva to Chamonix. Under the stewardship of four generations of Rothschilds, the resort has maintained is ultra-luxe ambience. The skiing is good, too: After all, Megeve produced Emile Allais. Article by Bob Soden.
Ron’s Last Run: We go into the New Year mourning the sudden death of our great friend and longtime contributor Ron LeMaster. His obituary is on the SkiingHistory.org website now. This issue contains the last article he wrote for us – the history of ruade, the “horse-kick” turn that evolved into down-unweighting and paved the way for avalement.
American Downhiller Marco Sullivan retired after 105 World Cup starts and went to promote Alpine speed through coaching and an award-winning film. Edie Thys Morgan reports.
Walter Kofler Invented Kofix, the first polyethylene base, in 1952. It replaced celloid bases and revolutionized ski racing, making the Austrian and Swiss teams dominant at the 1956 Olympics. By Seth Masia.
150 Years of Skiing in Yellowstone. Explorers, poachers and even the U.S. Cavalry skied into the bitterly cold, snowbound National Park beginning around 1872. By Jay Cowan.
Meet the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame Class of 2021, with boot designer Sven Coomer, snowmaking genius Herman Dupre, skiing stuntman John Eaves, retail pioneers Dave and Renie Gorsuch, broadcaster Peter Graves, freeskiing hero Mike Hattrup, ski mountaineer Jan Reynolds and pro freestyler Alan Schoenberger.
Farewell to Ski Pioneers Rupert Huber of Atomic Skis, inventor of the fat powder ski; racing promotors Anne and Joe Jones; adaptive ski coach Hal O’Leary; Whistler general manager Peter Alder; Burke Academy founder and ski-racer Martha Coughlin Corrock; and pro racer Paul Carson.
The January-February issue should mail around mid-January, but you can already read Edie Morgan’s brilliant report on the upcoming Olympics, Beijing Olympic Alpine courses are a mystery.
Test Your Skiing Knowledge
Each issue of SeniorsSkiing.com has a picture to help test your skiing knowledge. The pictures are from collections in a variety of participating ski museums, which we encourage readers to visit.
This picture, submitted by The New England Ski Museum, shows a chair that serviced a New England area in the 1950s. It was the upper of two lifts that, combined, providing more than 1000′ of vertical. The area closed in the mid-50s. What was the name of this short-lived ski area?
The first person to submit the correct answer to jon@seniorsskiing.com wins a yet to be determined, but skiing-related prize. Note, only answers sent to that address will qualify.The correct answer and the name of the winner will appear in the next issue of SeniorsSkiing.com.
Unfrtunately, there were no correct answers to the last Test Your Skiing Knowledge quiz. Perhaps the answer was a bit arcane. Nonetheless, it is quite interesting.
Source: New Mexico Ski Museum and Ski Hall of Fame
The man in the middle is Bruno Hans Geba, and he’s shown instructing two coeds from the University of New Mexico at Sandia Peak Ski Area in 1968. Several readers thought it might be Ernie Blake at Taos, probably because the image was submitted by the New Mexico Ski Museum and Ski Hall of Fame. Geba was born in 1927 in Salzburg, Austria. After World War II, he received bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in medical science, psychology and physical education from the University of Vienna. In 1955 he was invited to the US to serve as a consultant for the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. At about the same time, he received his American doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Colorado. While in Aspen, he trained the U.S. men’s and women’s Olympic ski teams and coached the International Professional Ski Racers Association. In 1966 he started a private psychotherapy practice in San Francisco; later becoming a professor at San Diego State University. He retired in 1992, moved to Hawaii. and passed away there at age 74.
Source: New Mexico Ski Museum and Sk Hall of Fame
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