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December 10, 2008 E-MAIL PRINT

Too good to be in True North

by Tony Chamberlain/

In any season, I am a real sucker for the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and New Hampshire’s adjacent tracts marketed as "North of the Notches."

From the breaking of ice in spring well into summer, I love roaming the waters from Lake Mephremagog and Lake Willoughby to the upper Connecticut River and its lakes around Pittsburg, N.H.

Together with Maine’s vast North Country, this is the kind of wilderness that always surprises western friends I have taken there over the years.

In winter, if New Hampshire north of Cannon tends to flatten out, not so the Northeast Kingdom, where two of my favorite ski areas reside — Burke Mountain and Jay Peak.

If there’s no other reason to consider these as destinations this season, go back to basics and think snow. The Northeast Kingdom reigns as the region of greatest natural snowfall in the east, with an average around 225 inches at both areas.

What natural snow does best, of course, is fill up the woods and glades, all the off-piste skiing that no amount of machine-made snow on open trails can accomplish.

Despite its economic roller coaster of recent years, Burke somehow keeps delivering the goods. Most of its followers find there the old world of Vermont ski charm.

This is not just a marketing phrase, it’s found in the very cut of many of its original trails — narrow and switchbacking, much like Mansfield’s classics.

For size, Burke does not rank with the behemoths like Killington and Sunday River. But its 2,010-foot vertical drop is most respectable, and its 45 trails and glades offer, quite literally, everything most skiers and riders seek, from long, rolling cruisers to gnarly challenges that live up to double-diamond status.

It’s no accident that Burke is home to Burke Mountain Academy, with its impressive list of Olympians and U.S. Ski Team members such as national champ GS skier Chip Knight and super-G champion Bryna McCarty.

The academy does for Burke — an injection of pizazz and youthful athletic talent — what Carrabassett Valley Academy does for Sugarloaf.

Off the slopes, Burke last year received the award of Best Overall Skier Services for an area of its size. It’s no sprawling destination resort — but maybe that’s why this area is so sweet.

Jay is somewhat better known, and it features a distinctively European flavor, due largely to the Montreal-French element that, in a way, dominates the feel of the place.

A true, 4,000-foot summit mountain that’s always awash in natural and man-made snow, Jay features some of the best glade skiing and riding in New England.

Still far from a giant destination resort, Jay is closer to the definition than Burke, with its two peaks offering 50-plus miles of skiing terrain and another 100 acres of off-piste woods rambling.

Jay’s vertical is 2,150 feet, with 76 trails ranging from the three-mile cruiser Ullr’s Dream to the most scenic Vermonter and the true black challenges of River Quai and Green Beret.

I’ve always loved the hard-core spirit of winter sports here that is typified for me in the annual George Syrovatka Downhill race. This is a true citizen’s downhill, the only one in the East, and perhaps the country.

The fact is, few if any other ski areas would stand for amateur skiers showing up with long boards, helmets, and a hunger to compete at 70 miles per hour — plus. As one who has stood with heart in mouth as his son competed in this race, I can tell you it’s the real thing.

So is the great food in the restaurants around Jay, again much of it with French-Canadian flare.

The surprise to most lower-New Englanders is how accessible the Northeast Kingdom and its skiing really is, most of it along major highways — I-93 to Route 3 through New Hampshire, to I-91 and Routes 58/5.