As we glided out of the woods, our daughter Laurel shouted, “This… is AWESOME!” We’d gotten to one of those classic Vermont xc ski vistas: a huge view across miles of rolling hills with woods and open fields, dotted with houses and barns. Then she double poled into a plunging, curvy downhill on to Viking Nordic’s Loki’s Run trail.
Last February, we drove to Landgrove, Vermont for Presidents’ Day weekend. Seeking respite from too much snow in New Jersey, so we drove north to …more snow. Just 40 miles north of Prospect Mountain, one of our regular haunts, I’d never been to this part of Vermont.
While there are plenty of unexplored touring centers on my bucket list, the plan was to stick close to our hotel and ski at Viking and at Wild Wings Ski Touring Center down the road.
Let’s face it: at best, nordic combined — where athletes race cross-country after jumping — is not on most Americans’ radar. When Johnny Spillane won the U.S.’s first World Championship gold in 2003, it didn’t elicit a yawn outside the nordic ski community. But when the U.S. broke through for four nordic combined medals in the 2010 Winter Olympics, it got people’s attention.
