It's late March and I'm nosing my trusty Saab up a greasy dirt road just a couple miles from the Capitol's golden dome. Leaf-like snowflakes float slowly from the gray heavens, draping the landscape with the stuff Snowflake Bentley lived for. Well, Bentley and a cadre of Vermont ski and ride fanatics like me.

It's been snowing all day -- 4 inches of the fresh stuff blanket everything with at least 500 feet of elevation and there's more higher up -- and I'd been cooped up at work. I feel like a caged dog. This may be the season's last powder day, and I don't want to miss out.... Read more

"Dammit, you should have known better,"

I whisper to myself, then draw a deep breath to quiet the butterflies in my stomach. It's 7 p.m. on a recent March eve, the sun has set, and I'm lost high on a Vermont ridgeline. Worse, I've dragged a friend into this deepening morass, and nobody knows where we are.

"Rookie errors," I scoff, mentally flagellating myself again for good measure. "You should have known better."... Read more

It's said that a good museum is a soulful place. If you accept that premise, the new Vermont Ski Museum has found its spiritual home in Stowe. Few places, at least on this side of the pond, are as steeped in ski history as Stowe. The National Ski Patrol, for instance, got its start in 1936 when a New York insurance executive named Minnie Dole tried to help an injured friend on Mount Mansfield and decided there had to be a better way down the mountain than using a piece of roofing tin as a rescue sled.... Read more