Stowe: the back story

About Stowe: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Ski Resorts Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Stowe calls itself the birthplace of alpine skiing in Vermont. The first lift-served runs on Mount Mansfield date from 1937; an Austrian instructor, Sepp Ruschp, had arrived the year before; and the Mount Mansfield Ski Patrol is the longest-operating ski patrol in the United States.

Mount Mansfield

Mount Mansfield is Vermont's highest mountain, 4,395 feet at the summit, with Spruce Peak facing it across the valley and the village of Stowe down the Mountain Road. In 1937 the first lift-served runs opened on the mountain, at the Toll Road.

The Arlberg comes to Vermont

In 1936 Sepp Ruschp arrived from Linz, Austria, and started the first Arlberg ski school on Mount Mansfield, with a rope tow on the Toll House slope. The Vermont Ski & Snowboard Museum, in the village, records that he went on to lead the Mt. Mansfield Company for fifty years, until 1986, adding lift after lift.

Welcome to the birthplace of alpine skiing in Vermont.

Patrol and soldiers

The Mount Mansfield Ski Patrol has now served for more than ninety years, the longest-operating ski patrol in the United States. Stowe also counts itself the birthplace of the 10th Mountain Division, the American army's mountain troops of the Second World War.

The Stowe Derby

In 1945 a personal challenge between Ruschp and the Norwegian mountaineer Erling Strom became the Stowe Derby, one of the town's great winter traditions.

Stowe today

Today Stowe Mountain Resort is part of Vail Resorts and the Epic Pass: 485 acres and 116 trails across Mansfield and Spruce Peak, joined by the Over Easy gondola, with the Spruce Peak Village at the foot of the lifts and the Mountain Road running down to Stowe village.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Stowe: the back story before you go.