Smugglers’ Notch. The site of the St. Michael’s College Carnival caught my eye and sent me down a rabbit hole. In a handful of minutes, I concluded that the names of New England ski mountains can be clumped loosely into different categories.
Some conjure an image of winter, or snow: Whiteface, the Snow Bowl, Mt. Snow. Others, like Loon, Wildcat, and Whaleback, take their names from animals. One particular subcategory appropriates words from Native American cultures (Sunapee, Shawnee, Wachusett, Pico, Nashoba), and many take cues from the lay of the land (Berkshire East, Mad River Glen, Waterville Valley).
Which brings us back to Smugglers’ Notch.
This name falls into that last category — a notch is a classic Vermont term for a mountain pass, and Smugglers’ Notch is the one separating Mount Mansfield from the Sterling Range and Spruce Peak. But what about Smugglers? This is the word that raises your eyebrow. It conjures thoughts of intrigue, crime, a bit of danger.
Rightfully so. It turns out that people began smuggling goods between Vermont and Canada through this mountain pass more than 200 years ago. The illicit activity last peaked during prohibition, when liquor was brought down from our northern neighbor.
I concluded that Smugglers’ Notch is a fitting name for a ski racing venue. Think about it: what are some traits of a good smuggling effort?
Goals for Smuggling
- Make a plan and stick to it.
- Use the terrain to your advantage.
- Be alert to your surroundings.
- Move as quickly as possible.
Now replace “Goals for Smuggling” with “Goals for Ski Racing.”
See what I mean?
* * *
If I were to gather a crew for a modern-day run through Smugglers’ Notch, the two people at the top of my list would be UVM’s Paula Moltzan and Dartmouth College’s Tanguy Nef. In commanding fashion, each of these individuals won their respective Slalom (SL) races today.
And these were tough races. More than 50 athletes DNF’d.
The courses were set on Snake Bite, a trail with an unforgiving pitch. It transitions abruptly to a flatter fallaway straight before finally flattening entirely on the aptly named T-bar Flats. A lot of skiers couldn’t handle the steeps and mistimed their turns — getting later and later until finally missing, or careening off, a gate. Others grossly misjudged the transition from steep-to-flat in spectacular displays of acrobatics. For some, it could just have been First Carnival Slalom Jitters.
But Moltzan handled it well. She finished first in both runs for a combined time of 1:26.16 to take the SL win by nearly a second, beating out Dartmouth’s Alexa Dlouhy (1:27.23). Dlouhy had significant support behind her — the next three finishers were also Big Green skiers, with Foreste Peterson rounding out the podium in 1:27.71.
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| (L-R) Alexa Dlouhy (2nd, DAR), Paula Moltzan (1st, UVM), Foreste Peterson (3rd, DAR) |
Dartmouth’s stacked finish helped them claim the women’s SL team victory. Their first three finishers combined to score 132 points, just ahead of UVM’s 118. Moltzan’s teammates Madison Irwin (1:30.23) and Francesca English (1:30.37) finished in ninth and tenth, respectively.
Dartmouth Women’s Head Coach John Dwyer was pleased with the results.
“The girls skied well,” Dwyer said. “I’m happy with the way they performed. It’s a tough one for Alexa. I know she wanted to put it down there and win, but Paula skied really well.”
Plymouth State University’s (PSU) Freydis Einarsdottir (6th, 1:29.73) and UNH’s Lisa Wedsjoe (7th, 1:30.10) were the sole non-UVM, non-Dartmouth skiers in the top-10.
* * *
In the men’s race, Nef (1:36.41) capped a perfect weekend with his SL win. Yesterday he won the GS race, and today he finished more than half a second ahead of second-place finisher Max Roeisland (1:36.96) of UVM. Nef's advantage came from the first run, as he and Roeisland threw down nearly identical times in Run 2, separated by just two-hundredths of a second. PSU’s Karl Kuus (1:37.84) took the final podium spot, finishing about one second behind Roeisland.
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| (L-R) Max Roeisland (2nd, UVM), Tanguy Nef (1st, DAR), Karl Kuus (3rd, PSU) |
Dartmouth Men’s Head Coach Peter Dodge explained that Nef rounded into shape just recently.
“Nef kind of came around this week,” Dodge said. “He was off a little bit. Just lacked some consistency the last couple weeks. But, we had some good training the last couple days and he was skiing really well, so I’m not surprised.”
The Dartmouth men won the team SL title, taking 130 points — once again, UVM was just behind, this time with 113. Brian McLaughlin (1:37.96) and Kalle Wagner (1:39.21) were Dartmouth’s final scorers, coming in fourth and fifth.
Despite today’s success, Dartmouth finished just second this weekend in the overall Carnival standings (946 points). UVM claimed the crown with 956 points.
The Dartmouth men’s Nordic squad had an off-day yesterday, which Dodge took in stride and used as motivation coming into today’s SL races.
“Our cross-country guys had a really, you know, a tough day,” Dodge said. “One of those days like sometimes we have up here in slalom, where everybody crashes. It happens. I think they’ll be back. It gave us something to shoot for.”
Middlebury College finished a strong third with 706 points, well ahead of UNH, which cleared 611.
Overall, this weekend saw two great races on a stellar surface. Carnival host and St. Michael's College Head Coach Gus MacLeod highlighted the shared effort that brought such high quality races.
"I thought the weekend was great," MacLeod said. "The surface was amazing. The ski club, the mountain, all really worked well together. We had great weather for it. I was really psyched."
* * *
No rest for the weary: tomorrow (Sunday, January 28) is the makeup date for the canceled Colby Carnival Slalom. The EISA teams will head over to Sugarbush to make up the race.
