We had a wonderful trip to Craftsbury this year. We had perfect weather for skiing all week long. Seventeen people from the Top of the Hill Gang went on the trip. All of us escaped the blizzard of 2026 by leaving the Boston area Sunday morning and the snow storm hit Sunday evening into Monday. Some people made calls back home to arrange to have their driveways plowed before their return. Northern Vermont got a small amount of fresh snow from that storm which added to the substantial base of snow that was already on the ground.
The ski area does a wonderful job grooming the trails. We had skiers of varying abilities. Different groups toured different parts of the substantially sized grounds. On one day, a group of ten of us skied from the ski area into the village of Craftsbury, which was about five mile trip, and we got a shuttle back to the facility.
While in prior years we had a participant that was an Essentrix exercise instructor, this year we had a volunteer who had computer access to a similar exercise class, and we were able to continue the exercise tradition.
As the ski facility is miles away from the nearest restaurants, the facility has a dining hall and provides breakfast, lunch, and dinner as a package with the night’s lodging. It was nice not to have to even carry a wallet as the cost of all the food was included in the reservation. Meal times were a pleasant social gathering. We also all gathered in the evenings in the lounge area of our Cedar Lodge. There were knitters, and people who played games: Rummykub, Five Crowns. A couple of jig saw puzzles were completed.
While we did not have a formal book group, keeping up the book group tradition, in our conversations, people shared the titles, authors, and plots of books they had recently read. And of course, in good Top of the Hill Gang style, there was wine, cheeses, nuts, crackers, chocolate, and good conversation to share. A good time was had by all.
Anne W
