There's a sign on the long driveway up to Magic Mountain in Londonderry, Vt. that reads "You've officially taken the road less traveled, welcome to Magic!"
That slogan couldn't have been more true for my first visit a couple years ago. My then-fiance and I were driving back from northern Vermont and looking for a place to hike and camp for the night. However, with spotty service and a gas tank running low, the hunt for some place with Wi-Fi became paramount. We turned left off a road and all of a sudden, the internet on my phone ticked on and we were face-to-face with Magic Mountain. I don't remember much more from that journey, just that we booked our wedding caterer using the excellent high-speed connection there.
Jump-cut to a little over a year ago. My buddies and I were planning a ski trip to southern Vermont, and I needed a spot to hit in between the big guys at Okemo and Killington and The Berkshires. Once again, though this time on my home internet, I stumbled upon Magic Mountain.
It turned out, Magic had just been rated the No. 1 mountain in America by a Liftopia 'Best in Snow' survey.
I hooked up with a couple of my friends and we shredded an icy day at Magic. My first impressions were definitely old school, rustic, a slower chair to the summit than I'm used to, but overall some gnarly terrain.
A year later, this past February, I happily returned to Magic on a foggy Thursday, kicking off another weekend of choice New England shredding.
Come to find out a couple weeks ago, Magic went ahead and three-peated as 'Best in Snow.'
I had to get to the bottom of how this relatively little mountain tucked deep off a main road in southern Vermont managed to claim a Kobe-and-Shaq level of greatness over a span of three years.
"It kind of measures the depth of passion of your customer base, and how strongly they feel about your particular mountain," Geoff Hatheway, President of Magic Mountain, told me over the phone this week. "In the case for Magic, we just have an incredibly powerful customer base in terms of their feelings about skiing at this place and what it offers.”
This column can be read in its entirety on The Berkshire Eagle website, or reach out to me directly for a compete copy.