Skiing New England

If one were Pressed to explain why skiing has become such a favored divertissement of young America, the answer would have to include feminine participation; were it not for the presence of all those beautifully filled stretch slacks, the Rockies' slopes would still be dotted mostly with bears and boulders, and the sole wintry sound emanating from New England's mountain fastnesses might well be the melancholy chriping of the hermit thrush.

No area of the U. S. supports this thesis as exuberantly as does New England, where, this winter, almost 1,000,000 skiers will do their schussing and social thing--primarily in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. (Massachusetts and Connecticut ski scenes are few and scattered.) If the thought that young men and women from all over the East, indeed, from all over the country, the themselves to the hills primarily for the pleasures of the great indoors strikes you as oversimplification, then check it out yourself. You'll discover, as (continued on page 243)Skiing New England(continued from page 137) we did, that while skiing may be the object, the major catalyst is the fair sex.

A word or two about the general area: The peaks are not nearly so grand as those found in the Rockies; New England can boast nothing higher than just over 6000 feet. Even so, New Hampshire's Waterville Valley was chosen as the site for last year's North American Alpine Championships and World Cup finals--honors that should repudiate any suggestion that the East isn't where it's at when it comes to ski settings. New England's trails also afford every kind and degree of challenge, from spine-chilling verticals to rambling cross-country runs. And when it comes to après-ski activity, New England is nothing less than spectacular.

Mt. Snow, Vermont, the place where New England's action begins, is a big, brash resort complex 200 miles north of New York City. With some measure of justification, it is often referred to as the Coney Island of skiing: Mt. Snow has the world's first bubble-chair lift (an enclosed two-seater that carries passengers with their skis on), a futuristic air car that wafts six skiers at a time from Snow Lake Lodge to the mountain's lift line, plus just about every other wintry sporting contrivance worth having. There's even an artificial geyser in the middle of artificial Snow Lake that, in winter, freezes to a height of 350 feet. Occasional golf-ball-driving contests are staged from its crest; but ordinarily, "Fountain Mountain"--with the aid of a rope tow and a thin blanket of snow--is used as a minirun of a minute's duration when skiers don't feel up to the slopes. Which is quite often the case. Mt. Snow's popularity has mushroomed in recent years because on any given winter weekend, several thousands of unattached young people--mostly from New York and Boston, mostly in their 20s--arrive expressly to have a ball, in both senses. Although that includes partaking of the area's 75 miles of ski trails, rental snowmobiles and skating ponds, more specifically, it translates into finding a member of the opposite sex with whom to share an intimate friendship.

Of all the ways to achieve instant friendship with a free-lance female, the most obvious is to meet in a hotel lobby, pool or cocktail lounge; this may explain why Mt. Snow's most expensive hostelries are always jammed. More than 100 inns, lodges and hotels are located within a short drive of the mountain in the adjacent communities of West Dover and Wilmington. They provide a complete range of digs, from a dormitory mattress under the eaves at the Snow Barn, to a comfortable room in the Handle House (a former 18th Century stagecoach stop), to a luxuriously appointed suite (containing such appurtenances as Tiffany lamps and other antiques) in the elegant Sawmill Farm Inn. The two biggest hotels, owned by the Mt. Snow Development Corporation (the firm that operates the area and a local computer dating service for ski buffs), are Snow Lake Lodge and Snow Mountain Inn, both of which feature a number of public rooms that are perfect for striking up new friendships. And the girls are definitely worth meeting: The snow bunnies in attendance are usually coeds (or recent grads), are generally better skiers than most of the male enthusiasts and spend several hundred dollars to ensure that they look their best. The owner of one New England ski shop told us, "A girl won't consider herself properly fitted in stretch slacks until you can see her every curve and depression from the waist down."

Waist deep in females is the only way to describe Mt. Snow's après-ski scene, which mirrors what goes on all over New England from November through April (and sometimes through June): At four P.M., with daylight on the wane, bars fill with skiers and those who have at least thought about skiing all day long. Pubs, such as Reuben Snow Tavern, remain packed until six, as pairing off progresses. If the hunt for a dinner date hasn't succeeded by then--at which time the bars become barren--next stop is an early chalet party. To guarantee results, small groups of guys split the cost of ski chalets: Hosts almost never go empty-handed.

Once a date is rounded up, the next order of the evening is dinner. Unlike many of New England's ski areas, there is no shortage of distinguished dining spots in Mt. Snow. Unfortunately, many of the local hostelries require guests to take their meals on the premises. American plan, which tends to discourage exploration of the appetizing alternatives around town. But for those who venture out, the rewards are bountiful, whether in the rustic setting of the Ploughman's Rest, which features roast beef on a spit with Yorkshire pudding baked by an expert, or next door at Neil's, where the fare is Continental. The Hermitage (located in a quiet inn of the same name), renowned for its wine cellar and French cuisine, specializes in Boeuf à la Parisienne and a scrumptious ice-cream and meringue dessert concoction, cassata alla Hermitage. The Snow Mountain Inn flavors its varied menu with such international selections as lasagna, curry and escargots. Further dining suggestions: The Old Red Mill Inn, where diners overlook Dover Run while digging into hearty helpings of clam chowder and Vermont ham in cider sauce; freshbaked bread and a pot of baked beans accompany every meal. Pizza and shish kabob are highlights of The Other Way; and at the Olde Baby, late birds drop in for steak-and-egg breakfasts that are laid on from midnight until three A.M.

If the single visitor is still flying solo after dinner, Mt. Snow's night life--in the main, a line-up of discos and pubs--is geared to correct that situation. Literally thousands of intimate acquaintances are struck up each yeast in Mt. Snow's bistros and hostelries, almost all of which offer some form of live entertainment. Action central is The Other Way, which can be depended on for the loudest, hairiest and most swinging rock sounds, followed closely by the Sitzmark, notable for its complement of unattached girls, and the disconcertingly named Fat City, which last winter featured the antics of a rambunctious rock group known as the Fabulous Farquahr. Another lively hangout for rockers is the Andirons lodge, which also boasts the biggest pool in the area.

If Mt. Snow is skiing's Coney Island, Stratton Mountain, some 30 miles to the north, is Newport. Stratton's clientele is heavily weighted with high-powered executives and their mates, who are attracted by the area's excellent trails and quietly elegant après-ski life. The emphasis is on skiing and social action is limited mainly to private chalets tucked away in the woods; but the singles scene is beginning to perk up. The mountain has six double-chair lifts, two T-bars and 50 miles of superb trails. It also has one of the nation's best ski-instruction schools, operated by Austrian expert Emo Henrich. Unhappily, Stratton's commodious and comfortable hotels (many suites have private saunas) are designed for couples; lone adventurers will find little in the way of revelry. If you bring your revelry with you, however, you'll discover that such hostelries as Birkenhaus, Stratton Mountain Inn, Hotel Tyrol and Liftline Lodge are near perfect for an amorous weekend. At night, most young Strattonians drive to Mt. Snow or to Manchester, the focal point of après-ski for Stratton and two nearby areas, Bromley and Magic Mountain.

Manchester's most popular rendezvous are the Jolly Green Joint, a boisterous tavern on the edge of town, and the Five Flys, a pub-steakhouse of singular charm that once did arduous duty as a gristmill. The beams are authentic, the lighting is warm, the restaurant booths lend an air of intimacy and there's rock music in the bar. Although Manchester suffers from a shortage of fine restaurants, L'Auberge, just outside of town on Route 7, features memorable French cookery and a wine cellar that just may be the best in all of New England's ski centers.

The Killington Basin ski area, located about 35 miles northeast of Manchester, is a four-mountain resort that's rapidly becoming one of the most popular--as well as most challenging--in the East. It boasts a peak of some 4000 feet with an Aspenish vertical drop of 3000 feet. When the final stage of the gondola opens this season, Killington will have the world's longest ski lift, some three and a half miles in all, giving the resort a total of 12 lifts, most of them double chairs, serving 50 miles of trails--including one run of five miles. It's at Killington that the newest and most effective method of instruction in recent skiing history has been pioneered: G. L. M., or the Graduated Length Method, which starts beginners on a 39-inch ski on Monday and guarantees more than passing competence on regular skis by Friday. It works, too, as novices who once thought that skiing is an innate gift have discovered.

As in all of the larger New England areas, Killington has an accommodation bureau; but it's advisable when reserving rooms to ask for something on Killington Road, the service route to the mountain, for the reservations people have a tendency to place guests in motels and inns that are sometimes as far as 30 miles from the lifts. Recommended lodges close to the mountain are the Chalet Killington, which has large, airy suites; the Rams Head Inn, a Colonial-style building with deluxe rooms and pleasant dormitories; and, best bet for service and comfort, the 40-room Summit Lodge, a New England vision of great, crackling log fires, paneled suites and a candlelit, romantic bar.

There are about 40 inns within ten miles of Killington, and most have public dining rooms. Sumptuous is the only way to describe the cuisine and attentive service at the Summit. House specialties include whole salmon, suckling pig and expertly prepared Continental dishes, such as sweetbreads and mushrooms and rondelle of beef tenderloin. Simpler (though no less appetizing) fare is found at the Christmas Turkey, La Cortina and South-worth's. As for night life, it's loudest at the aptly named Wobbly Barn, an off-kilter but sturdy rock joint that serves chicken and steak dinners and employs some fetching lady bartenders in the hayloft bar. Other offslope activity in the area is fairly restrained, consisting of Tyrolean entertainment at La Cortina, a quiet combo at the Christmas Turkey and folk music at Chalet Killington.

The accent swings back to social action about 45 miles north of Killington in the Sugarbush-Mad River Glen-Glen Ellen area--particularly around Sugar-bush, which, a decade ago, attracted attention as a refuge for the jet set. In the Fifties, Sugarbush was known as Mascara Mountain and there were two photographers for every celebrity, most of whom have now dispersed to whiter pastures, leaving a wonderful skiing mountain and a happy crowd of everyday mortals. (The Leonard Bernsteins and Skitch Hendersons still drop by, but the Acapulco-style elitism to which Sugarbush once seemed committed has disappeared.) The area accommodates its weekend crowds of 3000-4000 skiers without too much strain: Thirty-three trails crisscross the mountain's giant snow bowl, with access supplied by a T-bar, four double chairs and a 9300-foot gondola ride. Vertical drop is around 2400 feet.

The Sugarbush Inn sets a Colonial tone for local digs, although digs is hardly an appropriate description for the Inn's well-scrubbed ambiance of powder-blue table linen, frilly drapes and restrained lighting, set against a small forest of maple furniture and a solemn grandfather clock. A significant proportion of the female guests are New England, ladies whose chief recreation is reading about themselves in Town & Country; but the French-American dining is excellent and the service faultless. Sugarbush One, a posh 22-room Alpine-style annex, opened last February and is already almost as popular as its older sister.

At the opposite end of the price and social scale are the dorms in and around the nearby hamlets of Waitsfield and Warren, where the rates start at around three dollars if you bring your own sleeping bag. The kids are ten deep and love every minute. The Alpen Inn, Golden Horse Lodge and Madbush Chalet provide comfortable suites at moderate prices--as well as such relaxations as a heated pool at the Alpen, a Tyrolean bar at the Lodge and a Finnish sauna at the Chalet. Other recommendations are the Hotel Sugarbush, located at the mountain base, Knoll Farm, a country inn-type family hostel operated by ski instructors, and the skier-oriented Wind-beam.

There are at least three dining imperatives in the area: Chez Henri for fine French food, the Alpen Inn for an excellent Sunday buffet and Orsini's (also the area's first discothèque--a 150-year-old barn elegantly equipped with crystal chandeliers) for pasta, steaks and chicken. At Gallagher's, a rustic and raucous rock house, the menu is burgers, sirloin and veal parmigiana; similar fare for dining and listening at the Blue Tooth. Live dance music can also be found at the Sugarbush Inn's Boar and at the Village Edge.

Of all Vermont resorts, the biggest and the most aristocratic is still Stowe, which is located far enough from New York City to discourage heavy weekend traffic and yet draws thousands from New England's metropolitan centers as well as from Montreal. It remains number one, despite the advances made by newer rivals; and over the years, the name Stowe has acquired what amounts to an almost religious aura. Headline writers like to refer to it as the mecca and the shrine of Eastern skiing; but if there is any single discernible faith in and around Stowe, it is one that mixes pure skiing with pure hedonism. It is, in other words, the compleat ski resort.

Uphill facilities there are unspectacular and sometimes barely adequate--T-bars, double chairs and a four-passenger gondola that moves about 1000 skiers every hour; but the skiing is fantastic on both Mt. Mansfield and Spruce Peak, as well as on the Chin Area that opened last year. Dorms, cabins and luxury suites with uniformed help and self-service chalets are available. We recommend the Rocky River Lodge, the Round Hearth and Sans Souci for modest tastes; the Smuggler's Notch Lodge, the Stowehof and the Trapp Family Lodge (home of the Sound of Music clan) for luxury. First-class rooms are found at Jack Straw's (previously known as the Centre Motor Lodge) and, in a field behind this, for rugged types who'd like to cook their own meals, are the Mountain View Apartments, which provide luxurious private flats. The Scandinavia Inn and Chalets and the Toll House Motor Inn are comfortable and are located close to the mountain base.

Since the choice of après-ski activity is so abundant, skiers usually congregate at several popular spots for the first hot drink of the evening. The Whip, decorated with carriage lamps and equestrian fittings, is a prime pub favorite from around four in the afternoon until six. The cozy, candlelit Shed gets busy at about the same time and ruins countless dinners by serving irresistible charbroiled beefburgers marinated in beer. Another recommended stop is the New Matterhorn, which attracts a young crowd and serves up estimable roast-beef sandwiches.

For later carousing, knowledgeable celebrants move to Sister Kate's, which has a small Vegas-style showroom downstairs where the proprietor (and resident comic), Rock King, dispenses blue-tinted one-liners and squelches drunks with equal agility. Upstairs is an Edwardian bar, illuminated with lamps and warmed by a log fire. The noisiest night spot in town is the Black Gull, rated as the best pickup palace in Stowe but, unfortunately, always crammed beyond capacity. Another loud and groovy rock spot in the area is at the Topnotch, where dancing goes on until the early hours.

All of the leading clubs serve dinners; but if steak, lobster and chicken become tedious, there are several compelling choices. La Bicoque is a pint-sized French restaurant that keeps everyone waiting interminably, but the food is so good that nobody dares complain. Specialties include seafood bisque, quiche Lorraine, mushroom pie and Coquille St. Jacques. There's nothing wrong with the wine stock, either. Other favorites are the 136-year-old Green Mountain Inn for New England dishes, Rigby's Hob Knob for seafood, the Grotto for Italian cooking and the Trapp Family Lodge for Austrian specialties.

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From Stowe, Vermont, to the refined slopes of Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, the drive is long and the transformation total. A comparatively new resort--it's been in operation only since 1966--Waterville Valley still has some to go to compete with its big neighbors in Vermont. Fortunately for those who prefer skiing to hangovers, the men who manage the Valley are in no particular hurry to catch up. There are four excellent inns and guesthouses serving the area, and one, the Fourways, supplies all the necessary entertainment in the form of a remarkably competent group of young musicians whose repertoire takes in everything from ragtime to acid rock. One of the most laudable bonuses in the Valley is that weekday lift tickets are interchangeable among Waterville and four adjacent areas--Loon, Cannon, Mittersill and Tenney--which, altogether, provide a total of 25 lifts that move upward of 19,000 passengers per hour.

Waterville has two major ski areas: Tecumseh and Snow's Mountain. There are a dozen trails, seven slopes and an over-all vertical drop of more than 2000 feet on Tecumseh. Snow's Mountain, smaller in scale, is perhaps the first complete ski area in the world that can be rented by the day. For $600, you can take over the two T-bars and rope tow and have the six slopes and trails to yourself, as well as the services of the ski patrol and a private warming hut with all the coffee you can drink.

The heart of the New Hampshire ski belt is at Franconia and in the Mt. Washington Valley area. A mile-long aerial tramway, three double chairs and six T-bars comprise the uphill facilities at Franconia's two biggest mountains, Cannon and Mittersill. Cannon is a rather stodgy state-run facility, but it makes up in ski trails what it lacks in atmosphere. Mittersill bears watching; this small ski complex is owned by Austria's Baron Hubert Von Pantz, who is attracting a high-social-caliber clientele. Mt. Washington, which, at 6288 feet, is the highest peak in New England, commands a sweeping view of eight resorts, of which five--Attitash, Tyrol, Black Mountain, Wildcat and Skimobile--offer weekday interchangeable lift tickets. Among them, they operate eight double chairs, six T-bars and 67 trails from novice to expert. Wildcat is also the site of the first gondola lift in America. Many of the 50 or so inns and lodges in the region lay on some form of live entertainment, mostly rock and dance combos.

For Alpine adventurers, the annual outing to make is the big climb at Tuckerman Ravine, Mt. Washington's immense snow bowl that sometimes keeps its cover into the first weeks of summer and is distinguished by the fact that its season doesn't start until April, when the danger of avalanches has passed. But skiing at the Ravine is dangerous at any time; hurricane-force winds are often present, and a year rarely passes without a snowslide fatality. There are no tows at Tuckerman; skiers simply hike to the top, stop en route for a picnic and a warming brew and then strap on their skis and zoom to the bottom.

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Maine's ski resorts are in a category by themselves. There is nothing on the scale of Mt. Snow or Stowe, and it's unlikely that one will emerge in the near future; yet it's in Maine--and at Sugarloaf Mountain in particular--that some of America's cleanest, most thrilling and rewarding ski vacations can be enjoyed.

Sugarloaf achieves its special distinction--an ambiance of warmth and friendliness--without resorting to simulated Alpine villages and hokey Tyrolean trappings. Most people who stay more than a few days are drawn back year after year. The mountain itself, a perfectly conical peak that looks bigger than its 4237 feet, has a network of 30 or so trails that converge neatly near the base lodge and close enough to the lifts to preclude a long hike. Five T-bars serve novice and expert slopes and a four passenger gondola travels from base to summit, where skiers snack in the mountaintop restaurant before tackling the northern-face snow fields or one of the trails that lead to the base.

In the nearby hamlets of Kingfield, Carrabassett, Eustis, Bigelow and Stratton, there are small, cheerful inns lit by the glow of warm log fires. Accommodations include dorms, chalets and large, comfortable suites. In Carrabassett, the Red Stallion Inn, one of the East's most informal and congenial lodges, offers bunk rooms and private suites. Most of the guests are young (many of them are delicious French-Canadian girls) and throughout the season, there's a resident rock group. A touch more elegance obtains at the Capricorn, Tagues, Sugarloaf Inn and Roger's, which, among them, offer such amenities as sauna baths, good French cuisine and game rooms.

The Stallion is usually the center of night action, but there's more live music, mostly folk, at the Capricorn and Tagues. These inns and The Bag, a cheerful little bar in Carrabassett, are the favorite hangouts for the first drink of the day after the slopes close. In midseason, there are uproarious performances by the Carrabassett Bad Actors and The Carrabassett Grange Hall Talent Contest--Winning Band.

Maine is the least developed state in New England, and its serenely beautiful landscape is relatively unblemished by big industry. Around Sugarloaf, there are hundreds of square miles of northern pine, white-capped mountains, frozen lakes and rivers. On an ideal winter day, the air has a clean, crisp and crystalline edge.

Perhaps it is this feeling--of a land still beautiful, still wild--that lingers in the visitor's mind long after the pleasant memories of ski trails and ski bunnies begin to fade. New England confronts the skier with the great unharnessed presence of nature and an unforgettable awareness of the ages--called up by the inviolate beauty of its mountains and valleys. Increasingly, we are a nation of city dwellers who seldom see the sky except as a shaft of light glimpsed between skyscrapers, who seldom see clean snow, only the soot-covered stuff and dirty slush that clogs our streets. But tripping through New England erases that and evokes, instead, an open sense of wonder and an abandonment to simple and spontaneous pleasure.