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The Sled Cats faced the Montréal Dragons last Sunday afternoon at Cairns Arena in South Burlington. The Sled Cats have only been a team for three years, and this was their third game this year. In fact, it was their third sled-hockey game ever.... Read more

Scan the results of endurance races around the country, and chances are you’ll see the name “Enman” near the top, if not occupying the numero uno spot. Middlebury College graduates who married in 2002, Eli and Kasie Enman are two of Vermont’s finest fleet-footed athletes. Thirty-year-old Eli, who runs Huntington’s Sleepy Hollow with his family, kicks and glides on Rossignol skis, while Kasie, a 28-year-old Starksboro school teacher, pounds the pavement as an elite marathoner.... Read more

On a dreary Saturday afternoon, a steady stream of stick-wielding kids wearing orange-and-black “Middlebury Hockey” jackets flow out of locker rooms 1 and 2 at the Howard E. Brush Arena. “Good job out there today, guys!” says a coach, patting one on the back. The pint-sized players shrug and shoulder their heavy bags of gear toward their parents’ cars — just another day of passing the puck around.... Read more

Winter outdoor enthusiasts, brace yourself for a bit of a downer: It doesn’t snow in Vermont as much as it used to. VPIRG pegs the decrease at 15 percent since the 1950s, and temperatures have been on the rise. But even when the hills are like brown elephants in January, nearby lakes and rivers are usually frozen. Four words describe a sport that thrives on the simple equation of winter = ice: cross-country iceskating.... Read more

It’s tough getting into the winter sledding state of mind when it’s 80 degrees outside, most of the leaves are still on the trees and I’m dripping with sweat, even in shorts and a T-shirt. But as I hoof it up the west side of Prickly Mountain in Warren, the sledding potential of this wooded glade comes into mental focus.... Read more

Whether you ride one plank or two, fat powder skis, skinny cross-country skis or climbing skis for earning your own turns, you know that skiing and snowboarding require a tuneup of the body along with the boards. So Seven Days asked some of the Green Mountains’ greatest how they get buff for the white stuff.

John Egan, Sugarbush Adventure Learning Center Director, Moretown, 49... Read more

Forty years ago, 12 men registered as the Wilcox Expedition climbed toward the summit of Alaska’s Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America at 20,320 feet. Only five of them came down alive. What happened in between is the chilling subject of Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering’s Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters, by Waitsfield author James M. Tabor.... Read more

It's March, and the calendar is peeling its way toward spring, but the backcountry still wears layers of snow, with more coats sure to come in the next few weeks. For skiers, snowboarders and climbers, that means a few more flings with the trees, the bracing air and the solitude before the snow melts, and the mountains become a playground for everyone else again.... Read more

Among snow sliders, long underwear tops and bottoms were once as crucial as CB jackets, teal-green Rossignol 4-S skis and rear-entry Nordicas. Sure, our matching cotton sets had grayed at the armpits, frayed at the cuffs, and piled up more pills than US Weekly's latest cover girl, but we pulled them on religiously. Eventually we upgraded to silk, and finally to Capilene.... Read more

Envision "a macho sport that called for resolute participants willing to endure waiting times of forty-five minutes" before boarding a lift. "Tow operators often were willing to trade a ticket with anyone willing to pack the snow for an hour by sidestepping the hill first thing in the morning." Rain, meanwhile, left most participants pushing their cars out of thigh-high mud at the end of the day after shouldering their skis long distances.... Read more