Winner:
Trapp Family Lodge

Runner-Up:
Catamount Outdoor Family Center

TRAIL MIX

When latecomers set out from the Trapp Family Lodge to ski the 60 groomed kilometers of Nordic trails, one question tends to be on their minds: Can we make it to the cabin? Tucked amid maple and spruce at the top of a punishing slope, the Slayton Pasture Cabin offers hot drinks, a blazing fire, and the informal camaraderie of other folks who’ve made the climb on snowshoes or skis. More adventurous skiers get a workout on the 100 kilometers of thickly wooded backcountry trails before sipping their cocoa. But whether or not you make the cabin, it’s easy to see why the nation’s first full-service Nordic center consistently either wins the Daysie or comes in right behind Williston’s Catamount Family Center. One has looming, snow-misted mountains and a cabin; the other, a sweeping clear-day prospect of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks. Hard to lose.

- Margot Harrison