STOGUIDE pages 40-61:Layout 1 10/30/07 12:02 PM Page 42
ON THE MOUNTAIN
WEHRLE
LAND
DON
BY
T
OS
PHO
S
towe’s bounty of natur- What makes Stowe so special? It starts known as
al snow, its open glades, with Mt. Mansfield, Vermont’s highest Smugglers’ Notch.
uninterrupted fall line mountain at 4,395 feet and home to the Many of the trails
and the spectacular twin East’s greatest natural ski terrain. Stowe gracing the flanks
summits of Vermont’s thrills guests with its famous double dia- of Vermont’s high-
highest peak were a mag- mond “Front Four” trails: National, Liftline, est mountain can
net for the pioneers of ski- Starr and Goat. The Front Four are the quin- trace their history
ing inAmerica.And tessential classic New England trails with back to the birth
today, over 60 years later, steeps and bumps that pump even the most of skiing in North
snowboarders and alpine, accomplished snowboarder’s or skier’s America.
cross-country and freestyle adrenaline. They hold their place with the Nathaniel
skiers continue to bring world’s great runs, and among skiers the Goodrich, a
world fame to this proud world over they’re household words. Dartmouth College librarian,
mountain community. In fact, of all of
America’s winter Olympic teams, few have
L
made the first recorded descent in 1914.
ONG HISTORY OF SKIERS
Goodrich may have been the first, but others
failed to have a representative from Stowe. Its awesome and timeless beauty inevitably soon followed. By the 1930s, even before
Mount Mansfield and Spruce Peak capture strikes first-time skiers at Mt. Mansfield the first lift, skiers flocked to Stowe. These
skiers’and snowboarders’interest because and Spruce Peak. Even in early winter, the ski pioneers came here first for a simple rea-
they boast a total of 2,360 feet of vertical on high alpine forest is wrapped in a blanket son: best mountain, best snow.
485 acres, offering the longest average trail of white. Gliding toward the top of Mt. Most of Stowe’s trails were cut in the first
length in the East. Skiers and riders will find Mansfield, one is embraced by the stillness half of the 1900s, and without the benefit of
every type of terrain, from wide-open cruisers of a panoramic bowl that stretches toward bulldozers. The first ones were hand-cut by
to narrow, winding trails and glades. forbidding cliffs guarding the narrow pass the Civilian Conservation Corps back in the
42
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