Vermont
VT wins big in USA Today’s 10 best ski and snowboard awards. Here’s a full list of winners
Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe opens for the season
Skiers and snowboarders flock to Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe on opening day 2024.
Planning a winter ski trip? Consider heading to the mountains of Vermont.
USA Today’s 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards just released its best of ski and snowboard rankings, and Vermont won a total of 11 awards. The annual 10Best awards highlight the best in travel, food and lifestyle, and winners are chosen by a public voting poll after being nominated by industry experts. This year’s best of ski and snowboard awards ranks lodgings, locations and services for the winter sports across the United States.
In addition to Stowe placing as the third best ski town in the country, Vermont ski accommodations placed in the following categories: best apres-ski bar, best ski restaurant, best ski shop, best place for snow tubing, best cross-country ski resort and best ski hotel.
Here’s what to know about the winners:
The Belfry
Housed in a former one-room schoolhouse, The Belfry is a charming pub just minutes away from Jay Peak Resort. Between a robust beer and wine selection and a menu full of pub classics like wings and burgers, The Belfry is the perfect place to grab a drink after a day of skiing – earning the sixth spot on the list of apres-ski bars.
The Belfry is open for thirsty skiiers every day except Wednesday, with hours from 4-9 p.m. on Friday-Saturday and 4-8 p.m. every other day.
Award: No. 6 in Best Apres-Ski Bar
Location: 14 Amidon Road, Montgomery Center, VT
Cliff House Restaurant
Cliff House Restaurant, one of the restaurants at Stowe Mountain Resort, offers a mountainside eating experience at the top of the gondola on Mount Mansfield. The restaurant is known for American cuisine with a rustic Vermont flair, serving classics like chicken sandwiches and New England clam chowder.
Stowe’s Cliff House is open for lunch from 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. daily once the season starts on Dec. 14. A valid ticket or season pass is required to ride the gondola to the restaurant.
Award: No. 8 in Best Ski Restaurant
Location: 7231 Mountain Road, Stowe, VT (top of the mountain gondola)
The INN Restaurant & Bar
Taking the third place spot for best ski restaurant is the restaurant at The INN, a quaint inn in Montgomery Center.
Guests have a choice of eating in the intimate dining room, lively tavern or riverside deck. The INN’s seasonal menus offer upscale comfort food made from fresh, local ingredients, completed with various craft cocktails.
The inn’s restaurant is open year-round on Thursday-Sunday starting at 5 p.m. Reservations are highly recommended.
Award: No. 3 in Best Ski Restaurant
Location: 241 Main St., Montgomery Center, VT
Darkside Snowboards
Darkside Snowboards is a premiere snowboarding shop with locations in Killington and Ludlow. Just making the list of best ski shops at 10th place, this shop has everything a snowboarder could want, from performance and freestyle boards to boots, helmets, goggles and clothing for the sport. Darkside does also offer ski rentals, but mainly focuses on snowboarding equipment.
Hours for this snowboard shop are 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily in Ludlow and 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily in Killington, with extended late-night hours Monday-Wednesday.
Award: No. 10 in Best Ski Shop
Location: 1842 Killington Road, Killington, VT; 57 Pond St., Ludlow, VT
Skiology Ski and Sports
Right down the road from Downside Snowboards in Killington is Skiology Ski and Sports, USA Today’s second choice pick for best ski shop. The store offers a wide range of high-performance skis, from recreational to racing and all-mountain to powder, as well as daily ski rentals and professional tuning services.
Skiology is open from 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.
Award: No. 2 in Best Ski Shop
Location: 937 Killington Road, Killington, VT
Pinnacle Ski and Sports
Pinnacle Ski and Sports, a Stowe ski shop that has been open for over 35 years, took the top spot for ski shops in this year’s 10Best awards.
Along with a wide selection of equipment and apparel, Pinnacle offers custom boot fitting, ski and snowboard rentals, ski mounting and tuning, ski repairs and a delivery concierge service. The shop is open daily from 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Award: No. 1 in Best Ski Shop
Location: 1652 Mountain Road, Stowe, VT
Mount Snow Resort
Ranking fifth for best snow tubing location is Mount Snow Resort, a slopeside resort in the southern Vermont town of West Dover. The resort’s tubing hill has eight lanes and a conveyor lift, with tickets for two-hour time slots available.
In addition to snow tubing, Mount Snow has 86 skiing trails, a halfpipe and large terrain park. For those who want to stay, the Grand Summit Resort Hotel, Mount Snow’s lodging property, has almost 200 guest rooms and amenities like a spa, a health club, a heated pool and many locations for dining and retail.
Award: No. 5 in Best Place for Snow Tubing
Location: 39 Mount Snow Road, West Dover, VT
Viking Nordic Center
Londonderry’s Viking Nordic Center has over 16 miles of woodsy ski trails through classic Vermont scenery along the West River. All levels and types of cross-country skiing are welcome, whether classic, skate or snowshoe. For those just starting, the resort also offers lessons and rentals.
On select nights during ski season, Viking Nordic Center lights about two miles of their trails with overhead lights and gas lanterns from the 1900s, creating a unique nighttime skiing experience.
Award: No. 8 in Best Cross-Country Ski Resort
Location: 615 Little Pond Road, Londonderry, VT
Bolton Valley Nordic Center
Located in Bolton Valley overlooking the scenic Lake Champlain, Bolton Valley Nordic Center is a mountain adventure resort with the highest elevation in the Northeast.
The backcountry terrain offers trails for Nordic skiers and snowshoe enthusiasts of all levels, earning the resort a fifth place ranking in best cross-country ski resort. Additionally, Bolton Valley has paths for alpine, night and backcountry skiing, totaling in 71 trails.
Award: No. 5 in Best Cross-Country Ski Resort
Location: 4302 Bolton Valley Access Road, Bolton, VT
Topnotch Resort
Topnotch Resort, a luxury resort and spa located in the foothills of Mount Mansfield, ranked sixth for best ski hotel. Cozy, sophisticated rooms come together with beautiful gardens and a contemporary restaurant for a charming New England stay.
Along with skiing and snowboarding through the Stowe Mountain Resort, Topnotch has over 100 acres of activities like hiking, biking and horseback riding. Amenities include a spa, a fitness center, three pools, a tennis academy and seasonal activities.
Award: No. 6 in Best Ski Hotel
Location: 4000 Mountain Road, Stowe, VT
A man and a dog are dead after a house fire in Colchester, Vermont early Wednesday morning.
Colchester Police say they responded to a home on Malletts Bay Club Road after reports of a fire with a possible person inside at around 3:45 a.m.
Authorities say they saw heavy smoke and flames coming from the two story building when they arrived.
After extinguishing the fire, a body was located in the remains of the structure, according to authorities.
Police say a dog is also believed to have died in the fire.
The person found inside the building is yet to be identified.
The fire is not considered suspicious
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Vermont
Flooded Fields, Dying Trees: Vermont’s Christmas Tree Farms Grapple with Changing Climate – VTDigger
This story by Fiona Sullivan and Cassandra Hemenway was first published in the Bridge on Dec. 17.
Excess rain caused by climate change could be linked to challenges with growing Christmas trees in Vermont.
“The soil has been saturated for a year or more,” said Steve Moffatt from Moffatt’s Tree Farm in Craftsbury. With saturated soil, Moffatt said, there is a “lack of oxygen, so roots can’t breathe. … when it’s warm and wet in June you get more foliar disease, and the soil is wetter so you get more soil-related diseases.” Moffatt said a “noticeable percentage” of his trees are dead or dying because of soil saturation.
Will Sutton, who co-owns Balsam Acres Christmas Tree Farm in Worcester along with his wife Sue Sutton, said their farm lost 300 trees in the July 2024 flood, and 150 trees were lost in the 2023 flood. As of Sunday, Dec. 15, they had just two trees left for sale.
“We lost a whole year’s worth of trees in the flood,” Will Sutton said, noting that they typically sell about 300 trees at their “choose and cut” location on Elmore Road/Vermont Route 12 each year. “There’s been so much moisture that it’s taking (the soil) longer to drain out, so we’re finding more and more damage to other trees. We culled out 300 trees because of the flood, but we’re now seeing trees that are turning yellow even this late in the season.”
The Suttons have two other fields uphill from their choose-and-cut location, which sits adjacent to the North Branch of the Winooski River. Those fields are not seeing the kinds of tree damage the wetter Route 12 trees are having.
In fact, a study by Trace One notes that Washington County farms are expected to lose a total of $137,148 per year to natural disasters; it goes on to note that “the worst type of natural hazard for Washington County agriculture is riverine flooding, which can inundate farmland, damage crops, and disrupt planting and harvest cycles.”
Back in Craftsbury, Moffatt said he notices a decline in the trees sooner than most people would because his livelihood depends on it. There are “subtle hints,” such as declining color, lack of growth, and a “general look that it’s not that happy.”
Moffatt said he currently grows balsam fir and Fraser fir and has had a similar amount of tree loss between the two species.
Although Fraser fir is more sensitive to cold and has done better with the warmer winters, he said, it is also more sensitive to wet conditions and easily damaged from wet soil. Moffatt also noted that overall there are fewer trees available now compared to 40 years ago. There are fewer people growing trees and planting trees, and, he said, the average age of the tree farmer is 80.
Not all growers have had difficulty growing Christmas trees. Thomas Paine from Paine’s Christmas Trees in Morristown said the effects of climate change are “minimal,” and “the only year we had significant problems [with excess rain] was two years ago.” Much of his soil is gravel and sand, which allows for easy drainage.
Jane Murray from Murray Hill Farm in Waterbury said that although their driveway is muddier than ever before, they have mostly avoided water damage to their trees because they planted on slopes. She said people who planted in valleys have issues, and that most of the damage caused by flooding has been in the Northeast Kingdom.
The Wesley United Methodist Church in Waterbury has stopped selling Christmas trees, at least in 2024. The church’s answering machine states, “We will not be selling Christmas trees this year due to the scarcity of trees and also the higher cost.”
Moffatt maintained “It’s not just me, a lot of people I talk to are having this issue.” He said, “I have to look 10 years down the line.” And with native timber, such as ash, balsam fir, and beech not doing well, he’s considering planting red oak in his other timber lots, he said.
As far as Christmas trees, he is now considering planting trees such as Noble fir and Korean fir, trees that, he said, “I wouldn’t have even considered five years ago.”
Hisham Awartani and his family on the Brown University campus.
Suzanne Gaber
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Suzanne Gaber
Hisham Awartani and his family on the Brown University campus.
Suzanne Gaber
Hisham Awartani is a college student who was visiting family in Vermont over Thanksgiving break in 2023 when he and two of his friends were shot. All three young men are of Palestinian descent and all three were wearing keffiyehs when the attack happened. They all survived, but Awartani was left paralyzed from the waist down. Over the past year, he’s been recovering and adjusting to a new life that involves using a wheelchair.
Producer Suzanne Gaber has been following Awartani’s story since the shooting — from his physical recovery to the emotional hurdles he’s grappled with at Brown University, where he became a poster child of the divestment movement.
As Awartani prepares to return home to the West Bank for the first time since his injury, Gaber takes us through his year in recovery and what he hopes for as the war in his homeland continues to escalate.
This episode was reported for Notes From America with Kai Wright, a show from WNYC Studios about the unfinished business of our history, and how to break its grip on our future.
Companion Listening:
A Palestinian-American Victim of American Gun Violence Becomes A Reluctant Poster Child (February 19, 2024)
Still In Recovery From Being Shot, Hisham Awartani Commits To a Summer of Activism (June 6, 2024)
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