Long frustrated cross-country skiers should be on snow this weekend — but they will not be at Hickory Hill, the long-established touring center in Worthington.
Tim and Kathy Sena and other family members opened the 650-acre former potato farm in the late ’70s, after a few years as a snowmobilers’ center.
For years the Massachusetts High School Championships were held there on tracks on or near the historic Lafayette Trail, used by Colonial forces in the Revolutionary War to haul cannons to battles closer to the coast.
This year, the high school races will be at Notchview Reservation, 10 miles to the north on Route 9 in Windsor. The Bill Koch League program, formerly at Hickory Hill, will also be based at Notchview, the 3,000-acre tract owned and operated by the Trustees of Reservations. Information: 684-0148.
The closing of Hickory Hill — for this winter at least — followed similar actions five years or so ago at Swift River Inn in Cummington and Brodie Mountain in New Ashford. The Swift River Inn, with its impressive multi-million dollar skiers’ day lodge, is now a private school for teenagers. And after Jim Kelly sold the former Brodie Mountain Alpine Ski Resort to Jiminy Peak co-owners Brian Fairbank and Joseph O’Donnell in 1999, Kelly began converting his cross-country center in Lanesboro to a golf course, which is still under construction.
Although the loss of three of the top touring centers in the Berkshires hurts, there are still plenty of other places to enjoy the traditional Nordic activity.
Not far from Hickory Hill — which will still offer hot-air balloon rides and will be available for parties and other special events in two spacious buildings — are Canterbury Farm in Becket, home of the Pittsfield Winter Carnival cross-country races (623-0100); Bucksteep Manor in Washington (623-5535); Cranwell Resort in Lenox, home of the no-longer-held Bay State Games cross-country events (637-1364); and Butternut in Great Barrington (528-0610).
Close to the Berkshires are Pineridge in East Poestenkill, N.Y. (518-283-3652); Northfield Mountain in Northfield (659-3714); Maple Corner Farm in Granville, (357-6697); and Stump Sprouts in Hawley, (339-4265).
Lloyd Crawford of Stump Sprouts serves as spokesman for the Western Massachusetts Cross Country Ski Areas Association. He compiles a listing of special events for the group from December through March. Information: www.xcsskimass.com
Prospect Mountain in Woodford, Vt., is considered a Berkshire area because so many Berkshire races are held there when snow conditions don’t allow racing down south. Information: 802-442-2575.
In fact, the opening Berkshire High School race is scheduled at the mountain for Friday, Dec. 31, at 9 a.m. Prospect, with its 2,200-foot base elevation, is the home of the Williams College Nordic Team, and the Williams Winter Carnival Races in mid-February bring in this country’s top college racers — as well as a few foreign competitors. Prospect is also the home of a Bill Koch League training program.
Touring centers abound in Southern Vermont, with three in the Mount Snow area: The Hermitage, Timber Creek and the Wilmington White House — with snow tubing at the White House, too.
Manchester offers a full touring center at Hildene — the historic home estate of Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s son — and sometimes at the Equinox Resort golf course.
Stratton Mountain Resort has two centers, one at the golf course and a more limited one at the Sun Bowl area. Down near Bromley, Wild Wings has been in business in the town of Peru for 30 years. And next to Magic Mountain’s downhill trail system is the Viking Nordic Center, a few years older than Wild Wings. Grafton Village also boasts a center, with some snowmaking.
Okemo Mountain Resort in Ludlow has the newest touring center, located at the Okemo Valley Golf Club.
Suffice it to say, there’s the Trapp Family Lodge — perhaps the first touring center in the East — at Stowe, along with several other centers.
There is certainly a wide choice of places to ski, eat, drink and sleep in the Northeast, but SNOW is not certain, and only a few centers can afford to spend very big bucks on snowmaking systems. Swift River’s equipment was sold to Cranwell.
The 1932 Olympics at Lake Placid had plenty of cross-country races, but downhill events were not included. Yet, strangely, the Lake Placid Winter Games resulted in a mad rush to take up downhill skiing, and for years mainly Scandinavians and high school and college racers were the only people on cross country skis.
Multi-million-dollar resorts mushroomed, and prices for downhill skiing shot up, perhaps explaining the strange switch to cross country, starting around 1970.
People were sold on the slogan, “If you can walk, you can ski,†which was of course not completely true. In any event, if a touring center opened in the early ’70s, people came.
They are still coming to the slopes and trails — but most come for snowboarding, free skiing (and that refers to style, not cost), snow shoeing and snow tubing. They also come, in sometimes staggering numbers, for snowmobiling.
Touring center trail fees increased from a couple of dollars to between $12 and $20, and that’s not surprising because trail-grooming machines cost about $130,000.
And even when there is an abundance of snow, an alarmingly large number of cross-country skiers are adverse to paying. It’s a problem!
Nordic ski shops feel the same pinch, with fewer skiers willing to pay $400 for skis and $150 for boots. As a result, there are relatively few ski shops specializing in top line merchandise.
Steve Blazejewski of Berkshire Outfitters in Cheshire is probably running the best Nordic shop in Western Massachusetts, and he knows it all, from racing and coaching both downhill and cross-country skiing for 35 years and from selling the right kind of skis for the same amount of time.
“I sold as many skis in the early ’70s from my father’s basement as I do now in this huge shop,†he said the other day, indicating at least 30 feet of ski racks with skis up to six pairs deep.
He still sells plenty of skis and other Nordic gear, as well as snowboards, snowshoes, bikes, canoes and kayaks. Blazejewski outfits high school and college teams, as well as Bill Koch kids and complete families. He also brings in factory reps to conduct clinics on waxing and selecting the proper skis.
And Blazejewski and his wife, the former Karen Brundage of Williamstown, have produced more customers — or at least users of ski equipment. Karen is a physical fitness authority and coaches Special Olympics skiers and other athletes.
Their oldest child, Hannah, was an outstanding racer for Hoosac Valley High and took up snowboarding at Bates. She now works and snowboards around Lake Tahoe. Older son Michael skis cross country at Cornell, and other son Sam is a first-year student at the Stratton Mountain Ski Academy.
Larry Lane of the Arcadian Shop in Lenox is the top cross-country outfitter in South Berkshire and uses the adjacent trails at Kennedy Park, where he recently opened a trailside refreshment cabin.
John Bryan of the Mountain Goat in Williamstown specializes in telemark and all types of backcountry gear.
It should be noted that there is plenty of free skiing in the 400,000 acres or more of state and national forests in Massachusetts and Vermont. Just travel in groups of three or more, know the terrain or have a map.
You can pay for lift tickets at almost of the area downhill centers, as they are making enough snow now. Most Alpine Vermont centers are in daily operation — and in the Berkshires, Bousquet is running daily from 3 p.m. and Jiminy opens daily today. Have fun!
John Hitchcock of Williamstown writes frequently about the area sports scene.
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Pittsfield Schools Won't Release PHS Report
By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With the threat of legal action from staff members, the School Committee has voted not to release the redacted PHS investigative reports and instead re-release the executive summary.
On Wednesday, elected school officials rescinded a January vote to release the reports with required redactions by Feb. 18, a deadline that was never met, and voted to re-release the executive summary.
When it came time to vote on releasing the redacted May 2025 Pittsfield High School investigative report, only Ciara Batory and Carolyn Barry were in favor.
"This is a year of PR that we've been getting on the Pittsfield High report. This has been going on for over a year, nonstop, every other month, something about the PHS report. It has not gone away for a reason, and the reason it did not go away is because people want to know what happened," Batory said.
"These are people's children. I was reluctant to send my kids to school after reading this. Had I not trusted the schools that my kids go to and have relationships with the front office, I would have pulled all three of my children out of these schools after reading the comments that I read online, and again, as a parent, the only reason I wanted to read this is again because I didn't want to find out information from Facebook."
Three administrators and two teachers, past and present, were investigated by Bulkley Richardson and Gelinas LLP for a range of allegations that surfaced or re-surfaced at the end of 2024 after Pittsfield High's former dean of students was arrested and charged by the U.S. Attorney's Office for allegedly conspiring to traffic large quantities of cocaine in Western Massachusetts.
Some committee members said the January vote to "release the report in a redacted form by Feb. 18 and have it reviewed by the School Committee before its release to ensure there is enough to present" was confusing.
Batory and Barry thought the motion would release the report, which found allegations of misconduct "unsubstantiated." Batory said unsubstantiated does not mean wrongdoing, and it doesn't mean right doing.
Jason Codey struck out 13, walked two and allowed just an infield single as the Generals earned a 7-1 win over Wahconah to claim their third straight regional title. click for more
Gracelyn Wright struck out eight, and Genevieve Lagess went 3-for-5 with four runs batted in as the Hurricanes beat Monson, 17-3, to claim their first Western Mass title in four years. click for more
For the boys, Ward Bianchi helped lead the way with a win in the shot put and a second place in the javelin as the Mounties finished 16 points ahead of runner-up Pittsfield (pending the results of the pole vault, which were unavailable at 11 p.m. Friday night). click for more
Brady Auger Friday scored five goals to lead the Mount Greylock boys Lacrosse team to a 16-14 win over Hoosac Valley in the title game of the Western Massachusetts Class C Tournament. click for more
Brooke Harrington scored four goals, and Abigail Rodhouse had a hat trick as Wahconah won its second straight Western Mass title and the rubber match against the Mounties in the third one-goal game between the teams this spring. click for more
