Tag Archive for: burke mtn

Tamsin Venn

SeniorsSkiing Guide: Burke Mtn, VT—Basic And Friendly

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A Swanky New Hotel On The Mountain Is A Magnet For Those Who Love The Basics.

New hotel offers ski-out access to uncrowded trails.
Credit: Burke Mountain

“Burke is what skiing used to be. It’s back to the basics. We’re just happy here,” says Barb Mader who with husband, Don, ski 80 days a year at this laid-back mountain high in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. They stretch the season at Jay Peak, a 45-minute drive to the north.

Barb and Don Mader ski Burke 80 days a season. Barb came back to skiing after a 33 year hiatus.
Credit: Tamsin Venn

Burke Mountain is a place, she notes, where skier etiquette prevails, trails are uncrowded, the ski patrol is laid back, the views are inspirational, everyone is friendly and congregates après-ski at Mid Burke for live music. It’s a place where her three grandchildren learned to ski in the Explorers Program and, “All are great skiers now,” says Barb.

Groomed intermediate cruisers like Willoughby and Dipper are popular as is the winding Deer Run, and the rolling East Bowl. Power Line and The Ledges provide expert skiing, Sherburne Express beginner terrain. Plus Burke has some of the best glade skiing in Vermont—with wide spacing on Caveman and Marshland.

Unfortunately, Burke Mountain has had a rocky few years. The resort, until recently called QBurke, for owner Ariel Quiros, is now under federal receivership. An encouraging step, the managers opened the swanky, on-mountain 116-room Burke Hotel and Conference Center last September. It welcomed the first skiers this winter. It’s a real gem, with easy in and out access, nice units overlooking the slopes or the scenic Willoughby gap, an outdoor heated pool and hot tub, locker room, a ski tuning room for the young racers, and four eateries including the popular Bear Den. Burke’s loyalists hope the resort will find a new owner soon.

Barb Mader, 73, started skiing in the late 1960s, joining the racing Eastern Veterans league. She raced at different areas, lured by the $8 race fee plus a rest-of-day lift ticket. She competed in the famous Burke Mountain Stampede, with a group start of eight to ten racers taking off down Deer Run, onto Dipper, and straight down to Mid Lodge, trying to just to stay in the game, and “getting annihilated” by the Burke Mountain Academy kids. A great party followed at Mid Lodge.

Barb stopped skiing in the 1970s and started again in 2003, despite one replaced shoulder. A year later she and Don, 78, bought a condo at Burke, in one of the mountain’s financial downturns, demonstrating it is never too late to take up an old sport again.

Recently, the Maders have enjoyed the offseason on what some call the best mountain biking network in the country. Kingdom Trails has more than 100 miles of trails, through the woods and across the pastures, by the good graces of more than 50 landowners and businesses.

Burke’s Nordic Center has access to many miles of Kingdom Trails.
Credit: Tamsin Venn

The Facts:

Lift tickets:

Senior (65 plus) $47

Silver Streakers (55 plus): $35 Tuesdays & Thursdays (non-holiday) Judge Pass (70 plus), season pass at Jay Peak and Burke: $279 (if bought by July), no blackout dates.

X-C: Burke Nordic Center, $15; ask about a senior rate.

Vertical: 2,011 feet

Average snowfall: 217 inches

Snowmaking: 70 percent

6 lifts

36 trails and 14 glades

178 skiable acres

Trail Map: Click here

 

Susan Winthrop

When Going Up Was Half The Fun

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Early New England Tows We Still Miss.

Susan, second left, with her family in the late 50s. Note chic attire. Dad has spats; Susan's in a loden coat and white jeans.

Susan, second left, with her family in the late 50s. Note chic attire. Dad has spats; Susan’s in a loden coat and white jeans.

I’ve been skiing for 65 years, grown and raised in Concord MA.  I made my first turns on Punkatasset Hill, a no-lift neighborhood ski hill. That’s where I side-stepped to the top to pack the snow before picking my way down through the labyrinth of slalom poles my dad had set for me and many other local kids.  In the late 1920s, the Norwegian National Team used the jump at the short, steep hill for practice.

When I was seven or eight, Dad took me to Suicide Six in Woodstock, VT, where going up meant tackling a big, ferocious rope tow. Standing in line, I prayed that no one tall would step in behind me; I hoped that the person in front would hold on tight, lift the rope off the snow and stay in the track. Garnering all my courage, I’d try to grab the rope quickly, one hand in front and the other wrapped behind my back – ski poles dangling from each wrist. When I first caught hold of the tow, clutching hard with my leading hand, my arm felt as if it had been jerked out of its socket. If no one was in front of me, I was dragged along the snow, squatting in order to keep my body over my skis. If, as I had

Rope Tow at Woodstock, VT. Credit: New England Ski Museum

Rope Tow at Woodstock, VT. Credit: New England Ski Museum

dreaded, a taller person loaded on the tow behind me, I was lifted off the track into the air, hanging from the rope all the way to the top. When a skier in front lifted the weight of the monstrous rope for me, I was happy until that person unloaded and dropped the rope to ski off, leaving me again dragging along the track, hands soaking in my leather mittens and determined to make it to the top.

But the worst menace of all were the teenage boys. I quivered when one of them was up front for I knew what they did for fun. When dismounting, those boys deliberately snapped the tow as hard as they could, sending rippling waves of rope down the track. Yanked up and down, I was soon dislodged. Skiing down the hill covered in snow and disgrace, I slid to the bottom to get in line and start the ascent all over again.

I miss the old T-bar which took me to the top of Cannon Mountain in Franconia, NH. It was magically quiet gliding up through the hoar-frosted evergreens with the sun shimmering off the clear ice which encased the very tops of the

T-Bar at Black Mountain, NH. Credit: New England Ski Museum

T-Bar at Black Mountain, NH.
Credit: New England Ski Museum

trees. Of course, it was uncomfortable when my side of the T-bar was in the middle of my back with my father riding beside me, struggling to help me, leaning down to hold his side of the bar behind his knees. What a relief when I was old enough to ride the lift with kids my own height or go up on my own holding the T-bar out in front of me, making “S turns” in and out of the track. I danced the whole way to the top.

And then there was Burke, in the “Northeast Kingdom” of Vermont that had a Poma lift running from the bottom to the very top of the Mountain. Here, I bumped off the growing mounds of snow which got larger with every run until I catapulted right to the top of the spring, hurled high into the air – boing, boing, boing.  Going up was half the fun.

For more about Suicide Six’s 75th Anniversary.

For more about Gunstock’s old Rope Tow, another favorite.

 

 

Susan Winthrop is a long-time skier with memories of the sport extending back more than seven decades.  A contributor to SeniorsSkiing.com, she currently lives in Ipswich, MA, enthusiastically skiing in and around New England whenever she can.

Suicide Six also had a Poma lift Credit: New England Ski Museum

Suicide Six also had a Poma lift
Credit: New England Ski Museum

 

Special Thanks to the New England Ski Museum, Franconia, NH.