Vaughan to Stowe: Vermont's ski village by chauffeured car

Stowe, the mountain and the village

Stowe is Vermont's ski town in the way Whistler is British Columbia's: a village of white clapboard and a church steeple of 1863 on Route 100, and six miles up the Mountain Road, Mount Mansfield — the state's highest at 1,339 metres, with a profile the locals read as a face — where Stowe Mountain Resort runs the Front Four's famous steeps and the gondola, and Spruce Peak across the road has the village of the resort's hotel, the ice rink and the beginner slopes; in summer the gondola and the Auto Toll Road climb the mountain for the view to Canada and New Hampshire, and Smugglers' Notch's road squeezes between the boulders to the other side. Above the village on a hill of its own is the Trapp Family Lodge, the Austrian-style resort the von Trapps built in 1950 after the family of The Sound of Music settled here — the cross-country trails, the brewery, the sugarhouse, the Sunday concerts in the meadow — and the Stowe Recreation Path runs five miles along the river from the church to the mountain for the family's bicycles. Ben & Jerry's factory is fifteen minutes south at Waterbury and Burlington is an hour west; the Go Stowe site has the town, and the border guide has the Lacolle crossing.

The road

From Kleinburg the 407 and the 401 to Montreal in five and a half hours, Autoroute 15 to the Lacolle crossing, I-87 south four exits to Route 11 east across Lake Champlain's Rouses Point bridge to Route 2 and I-89 at Swanton — or Autoroute 35 to the Highgate crossing and I-89 directly — then I-89 south through the Green Mountains to Waterbury and Route 100 north twenty minutes to the village; nine hours by the estimate and nine and a half with the booth and a Kingston stop, which is why the ski week's drive splits at Montreal and arrives at the mountain in time for an afternoon on the hill. The Sprinter carries a family and the skis on winter tires; Route 100 in a January storm is the chauffeur's road.

Stowe Mountain Resort, in winter

Mount Mansfield's face has the Front Four — Starr, Goat, National and Liftline, the East's most famous steeps — the gondola from the Midway base to the Cliff House at the summit's shoulder, the FourRunner Quad up the face, the long intermediate runs of Toll Road and Perry Merrill, and Spruce Peak across the Mountain Road with the Adventure Center's ski school, the beginner slopes, the Lodge at Spruce Peak's village and the outdoor rink; a hundred and sixteen trails, a vertical of 720 metres, and a season from late November to mid-April on the strength of the snowmaking and the mountain's north face. The resort is Vail's and the Epic Pass covers it, which a Vaughan family with the pass for Whistler uses here; the resort's site sells the day tickets and the lessons, which for the Christmas and Family Day weeks book in the autumn.

Summer and autumn on the mountain

In summer the gondola runs to the Cliff House for the summit trail to the Chin and the view over the Champlain valley to the Adirondacks, and the Auto Toll Road — a 1922 gravel road of four and a half miles — climbs from the Mountain Road to the Nose's parking lot for a family that would rather drive, with the chauffeur at the wheel and the family at the windows; Spruce Peak's zipline and the Stowe Rocks climbing centre are the teenagers'. In October the Mountain Road, Route 108 through Smugglers' Notch and Route 100 are the foliage drives — the mountain's colour from the gondola and the notch's boulders in the red maples — and the week Vaughan families book first, with the village's inns doubled and gone by June.

The Trapp Family Lodge

The von Trapps — Maria, the Captain and the children of the film — settled on a farm above Stowe in 1942 because the hills looked like Austria, ran a music camp and a guesthouse, and after a fire built the lodge of 1983 in the Austrian style that stands today: the rooms with the balconies over the meadow, the Austrian Tea Room's apple strudel, the von Trapp Brewing's Austrian lagers and its Bierhall, the sixty kilometres of cross-country trails that were the country's first commercial Nordic centre, the sugarhouse, the maple-syrup tours, the Sunday afternoon Meadow Concerts in summer with the Vermont Symphony, and the family history tour by a von Trapp descendant. A Vaughan family sleeps here for the meadow and the brewery, or visits for the Tea Room's afternoon and the Nordic trails' hour; the lodge's site has the rooms and the travel desk holds them.

The village, the Recreation Path and the Notch

Stowe village's Main Street is the Community Church's white steeple, the Green Mountain Inn of 1833, the Shaw's General Store since 1895, the Stowe Mercantile, the Black Cap Coffee and the restaurants — Harrison's, the Whip at the inn, the Bench — with the Helen Day Art Center and the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum in the old town hall; the Stowe Recreation Path runs five miles from the church along the West Branch river to the mountain's foot for bicycles and strollers, with the swimming holes and the Alchemist brewery's Heady Topper beside it; Smugglers' Notch's Route 108 from the resort to Jeffersonville squeezes between thousand-foot cliffs and boulders the size of houses — closed in winter, walked in the spring before it opens, driven in the SUV in summer and October with the chauffeur's care at the hairpins — and the Smugglers' Notch Resort on the other side is the second ski hill for the family week.

The ski week, in shape

Saturday's drive with the split at Montreal, Sunday's I-89 and the Lodge at Spruce Peak or the Trapp Family Lodge by 11 with the afternoon on Spruce's beginner slopes for the children's first lesson; Monday to Thursday the mountain — the Sprinter's morning drive from the Trapp to the Midway base, the gondola, the Front Four for the parents, the Adventure Center for the children, the Cliff House's lunch, the last run at 3:30, the Trapp's Bierhall or the village's après — with Wednesday's Nordic morning on the Trapp's trails and the sugarhouse; Friday the drive home in one day — Route 100, I-89, the Lacolle crossing at 12:30 with the 48-hour exemption on the maple syrup, Montreal, the 401, Kleinburg by 8. Six nights, the Sprinter on daily hire with the mountain days' drives inside it, one number in the booking engine.

What the chauffeur replaces

Nine hours each way through two provinces and a state with the skis, and Route 100 in a storm, as a driver; the Lacolle crossing; the mountain's morning and afternoon drives for a family in the village; the Notch's hairpins with a family looking at the boulders; and the Friday's long road home. For a couple the trip is a car's; for a ski family of five or two families in a Sprinter it is one fare and a driver who has done I-89 in January.

Seasons

Late November to mid-April for the skiing, with the Christmas week and the Family Day week the fullest and the March sun the best; the first two weeks of October for the foliage, when the village doubles and the Notch's road is a slow parade; summer for the gondola, the Recreation Path, the Trapp's meadow concerts and the swimming holes; late April and May for the mud season, when the village is cheap and quiet and the Notch is walked before it opens.

Pairing it

Stowe pairs with Burlington an hour west as the Vermont week's lake half, with Montreal as the drive's split, with the White Mountains two hours east across the Connecticut River for a two-state foliage week, and with Boston three hours southeast by I-89 and I-93 as the northern road's end.

The foliage day, in order

A family of four from Kleinburg in the SUV from the Trapp Family Lodge at 8:30: the Mountain Road to the resort's Midway base at 8:45 and the gondola's first cabin at nine — the colour from the Cliff House over the Champlain valley — the summit trail's half hour; Smugglers' Notch's Route 108 at 10:30 with the chauffeur at the hairpins and the family at the boulders, the walk from the notch's lot to the Smugglers' Cave; Jeffersonville's Boyden Valley winery at noon for the parents' tasting and the farm's lunch; Route 108 back through the notch at 1:30; the Stowe Recreation Path's bicycles from the village at 2:30 for the river's five miles; the Alchemist's Heady Topper for the father at four; the Trapp's Bierhall at 5:30 and the meadow's sunset. A day that a family in its own car does half of, because the notch's lots and the village's are the October problem.

The Vermont food, and the syrup home

Stowe's week eats Vermont: the Trapp's strudel and its lagers, the Alchemist's beer, the Cabot cheese and the Cold Hollow donuts at Waterbury, the Stowe Mercantile's maple everything, the Harrison's and the Bench's dinners, the Sunday brunch at the Green Mountain Inn's Whip, and the sugarhouses' March boiling — the Trapp's own and the Nebraska Knoll's up the Mountain Road — for a family in the March sun; the maple syrup rides home in the Sprinter's bay under the 48-hour exemption, and the beer within its 8.5-litre allowance. The Go Stowe site has the sugarhouses' open days.

Costs, plainly

The Stowe week is a daily hire in the booking engine with the mountain's drives inside it; the lodge, the lift tickets and the gondola are the family's own, and the exemption covers the syrup and the Mercantile's bags. Against the fare are nine hours each way through two provinces and a state with skis as a driver, the Lacolle crossing, Route 100 in a storm and the mountain's daily drives; a couple does this in a car, and a ski family of five or two families in a Sprinter book it for one fare and a driver who has done I-89 in January.

Booking it

Book a daily hire from your Vaughan address for the week with the mountain days' drives inside it, or a return with the village days released; tell us the lodge, the split, the lift tickets' days, the skis and the seats, and every passenger's citizenship for the Lacolle crossing, and the chauffeur confirms the road and the plan the evening before with Route 100's forecast on it.

Book the Stowe week