Stowe, the Ski Capital of the East, beneath Vermont's highest peak
Photographs: Ascended Dreamer, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Seasider53, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ascended Dreamer, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The cities · The Green Mountains
Stowe is a Lamoille County town of 5,223 people at the foot of Mount Mansfield, nicknamed the Ski Capital of the East, with a church-spired village, a recreation path and a notch road through the mountains.
- Stowe Mountain ResortSki terrain on Mount Mansfield and Spruce Peak, with 10 chairlifts and the Over Easy gondola joining the two.
- Vermont Ski and Snowboard MuseumFounded in 1988 and moved to Stowe in 2000, with artifacts on skiing and snowboarding in the state.
- The Stowe Recreation PathA trail from the village toward the TopNotch Lodge, finished in 1989 and the winner of several awards.
- Smugglers' NotchVermont Route 108 climbs 17 miles from Stowe village through the notch to Jeffersonville.
- Cady Hill ForestConserved by the Stowe Land Trust in 2012, with more than 11 miles of hiking and mountain-bike trails.
- Trapp Family LodgeOne of the points of interest the town lists, on the hills above the village.
Why it matters
Stowe lies on Vermont Routes 100 and 108 in southern Lamoille County, in a broad, fertile valley between Mount Mansfield and the other peaks of the Green Mountains to the west and the Worcester Range to the east. At the 2020 census it had 5,223 people, and it is nicknamed the Ski Capital of the East. By area it is the second-largest town in Vermont, after Chittenden in Rutland County.
The village sits in the east-central part of the town beside the Little River, where it is joined by its West Branch; the river, a tributary of the Winooski, flows south past the village of Moscow and into Waterbury Reservoir. Behind it stands Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in Vermont, and the ski area that climbs its eastern face. Few places in the state put a village green, a river, a major peak and a mountain pass so close together.
Sheep, farms and summer visitors
Stowe was chartered on June 8, 1763, by Royal Governor Benning Wentworth. By the turn of the nineteenth century most of the property had been sold and the population had risen to 316. More than 75 percent of the land, in Stowe and across most of Vermont, was open terrain cleared by lumbering and used for farming, particularly sheep, and up to 8,000 sheep grazed the hills and valleys here.
Like the rest of New England, Stowe switched from sheep to dairy, with more than 100 farms in the town, and about 75 percent of the cleared area reforested over time. Unlike much of Vermont, Stowe was never centered solely on agriculture. It was a well-known summer resort by the middle of the nineteenth century, thanks to its mountain scenery.
The Summit House on the mountain went up just before the Civil War, and a toll road to it followed by 1870; the 300-room Mansfield House, known as the Big Hotel, burned down in 1889. Behind it lay a vast stable with over 100 horses; the barn was demolished in 1953 over fire concern, and several of its original beams were reused in the construction of The Whip Bar and Grill.
How Stowe became a ski town
Summer tourism stayed crucial through the First World War, and Stowe held its first Winter Carnival in 1921, with ski jumping, skating and other activities. During the Great Depression the Civilian Conservation Corps built camps and began clearing ski trails on Mount Mansfield, the beginning of Stowe's role as an early mecca of downhill skiing in the United States. The first, the Bruce Trail, was cut in 1933.
The National Ski Patrol was modeled on the Mount Mansfield Ski Patrol, founded in 1934 and the oldest in the nation. In 1940 Stowe became the first ski area in Vermont with a chairlift, the Mansfield Single, and the second in New England. Vail Resorts bought the ski operations in 2017 from AIG, which had owned the resort since 1988, and the Mount Mansfield Company still holds the lodge and other real estate.
The mountain and its resort
Stowe Mountain Resort has terrain on two mountains, Mount Mansfield and Spruce Peak. The lift-served vertical drop on Mount Mansfield is 2,360 feet, the fifth largest in New England and the fourth largest in Vermont. About 116 trails give 40 miles of skiable terrain, and average annual snowfall at the summit is about 224 inches. The resort has 10 chairlifts, 6 on the Mansfield side and 4 on Spruce Peak, joined by the Over Easy gondola. The Mount Mansfield Company long owned the whole resort, and from 1949 its owner was the insurance executive C. V. Starr, founder of American International Group.
Summer visitors to the mountain have the other half of the story on the Mount Mansfield page, which covers the summit ridge, the Long Trail and the notch.
Walking, riding and the notch
The Stowe Recreation Path runs from the village downtown all the way to the TopNotch Lodge. Completed in 1989, it has received several awards and honors, and it is the easiest way to see the valley without a car. Cady Hill Forest, on the western edge of the village, offers more than 18 kilometers of hiking and mountain-bike trails, with an access point off Route 108, which is also called the Mountain Road.
Vermont Route 108 has its southern end in Stowe village and leads northwest through Smugglers' Notch for 17 miles to Jeffersonville, in the Lamoille River valley. Route 100 crosses the town from north to south, with Morrisville 9 miles north and Waterbury 10 miles south. The scenic drives page places both roads among the state's best.
Planning
Stowe village has a temperate continental climate with warm, comfortably humid summers and cold winters. Peak fall color usually comes in late September, and the peak spring bloom comes in early May in the village and in late May on the mountain. The when to come page explains the seasons in detail. Peak fall color usually arrives in the last days of September, so a late-September visit catches both the leaves and the open road.
The Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum is in the village, and the town also has a Winter Academy for snow-sport athletes. For a first visit, the village is the base, the mountain road the main excursion, and a day on the recreation path a good rest between them. Stowe also made snowshoes, in the Tubbs factory, which closed in 2009. Three public schools serve the town, and the Mount Mansfield Winter Academy is based here.
