Smugglers' Notch Resort is a ski resort area in the town of
Cambridge, Vermont
Cambridge is a town in Lamoille County, Vermont, United States. The population was 3,839 at the 2020 United States Census. Cambridge includes the villages of Jeffersonville and Cambridge.
History
Granted on November 7, 1780, Cambridge was chart ...
, United States, located near the village of
Jeffersonville. Its vertical drop of is the
fourth largest in
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
and the third largest in
Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
.
Its namesake is a narrow notch (
mountain pass
A mountain pass is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge. Since many of the world's mountain ranges have presented formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both Human migration, human a ...
) running adjacent to Sterling Mountain, which
smuggle
Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations.
There are various ...
rs used many years ago.
Smugglers' Notch, nicknamed Smuggs, consists of three mountains: Morse, Madonna, and Sterling. The resort attracts skiers in the winter and summer vacationers during the warmer months.
History
Smugglers' Notch was founded in 1956 by a group of Vermont skiers. The first lifts were two Pomas (or
platter lift
A surface lift is a type of cable transport for snow sports in which skiers and snowboarders remain on the ground as they are pulled uphill. While they were once prevalent, they have been overtaken in popularity by higher-capacity and higher-co ...
s) on Sterling Mountain.
In the early 1960s,
Tom Watson Jr., Chairman of
IBM, became involved with the mountain. The site of the village today was an open field and logging station. Watson envisioned a village patterned after those found in Europe. Soon, he developed the nearby Morse and Madonna mountains. It is said that Watson placed the bottom of the Madonna I chairlift several feet below the lodge to obtain the honor of owning the world's longest bottom-drive chairlift at the time.
After this was done, Watson started on the Village at Morse that he had envisioned. He hired Stanley Snider of Stanmar, a
-based developer and
Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the Northeastern United States, located south of Cape Cod in Dukes County, Massachusetts, known for being a popular, affluent summer colony. Martha's Vineyard includes the s ...
resort owner, to create that village. After a heart attack, Watson began to divest in some of his business holdings and sold Smuggs to Snider and Stanmar, who operated the resort for years. At that time Terpstra and Morrow constructed a large in-ground pool and 24 four-bedroom, four-bath, pool-front luxury condominiums. Terpstra is still a very active property owner at the entrance of the resort. They hired AT&T's Bill Stritzler, who owned a home at Smuggs, as the Managing Director of the resort. When Snider retired, he sold the resort to Stritzler.
Area
Smugglers' Notch namesake comes from the smugglers of the early nineteenth century, who used the thick forest on the mountain range, and the caves and caverns along the Long Trail to transport illegal or embargoed goods across the
Canada–US border. The notch was most likely involved in
bootlegging during the
Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...
-era of the 1920s, using the same caves as a cache for smuggled Canadian beer, wine, and spirits. Scenic Smugglers' Notch proper comprises Sterling Mountain/Spruce Peak ridgeline to the east and
Mount Mansfield
Mount Mansfield is the highest mountain in Vermont with a summit that peaks at above sea level. The summit is located within the town of Underhill, Vermont, Underhill in Chittenden County, Vermont, Chittenden County; the ridgeline, including som ...
to the west. Extremely steep terrain drops down into the notch where
Vermont Route 108
Vermont Route 108 (VT 108) is a north–south state highway in northern Vermont, United States. Its southern terminus is at VT 100 in Stowe, and its northern terminus is at the Canada–US border in Franklin, where it continues in ...
winds through switchbacks below, connecting Smuggler's Notch Resort with adjacent
Stowe Mountain Resort a few miles to the south. The road is closed to cars November–April, but open to snowmobilers and winter sports enthusiasts.
Winter
In the winter, the resort centers around skiing and snowboarding. A fleet of
Hall
In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gr ...
double chairlifts service a variety of terrain, including novice trails at Morse Mountain and The Village area, and intermediate and expert terrain on the main mountains, Sterling and Madonna. Smugglers Notch is the only resort in Vermont with a triple black diamond.
"Review of Smugglers' Notch"
''WeJustGotBack.com'', February 2006 (Updated November 2010)
Resort
Smugglers' Notch Resort is owned by William Stritzler.
Summer and autumn
Smugglers Notch has numerous heated pools and organized kids camps during the summer as well as a canopy tour that involves both scenic hikes and zip lines.
References
External links
Official website
Smuggs snow report
Ski map
{{Authority control
Buildings and structures in Cambridge, Vermont
Ski areas and resorts in Vermont
Timeshare
Tourist attractions in Lamoille County, Vermont
Buildings and structures in Lamoille County, Vermont