For over 30 years, Highland Lodge in Greensboro has maintained a cross-country ski trail system connecting Highland Lodge to private and conservation lands. The trails traverse high meadows, sugar bushes, and boreal woodlands and offer panoramic views of frozen lakes, mountains including Mansfield, and the Worcester, Woodbury, and Lowell mountain ranges. On clear days, the White Mountains and western and southern Green Mountains are visible.

David Smith, now in his 31st year of innkeeping at Highland Lodge, conceived the idea of a Greensboro nordic system in the 1970s, when his parents were the innkeepers. “We realized that we could extend our season into the winter if we gave guests something to do.” By the mid 1970s Smith and wife Wilhelmina, along with other members of the family, had established a trail system laid out for views from hilltops and down through fields. The result, decades later, is a trail system that provides extensive access to the Northeast Kingdom highlands, with several loops that give skiers short to full-day ski options.  “People tell us all the time that these are the most beautiful trails in the east. We’ve kept our emphasis on classic ski touring because that’s what we designed these trails for,” says Smith.

Summer People don't come to their camps in Greensboro as often as they used to. In the 40s and 50s, Moms brought their children up for weeks. There were the July families and the August families. Dads came up when they could, usually for a week or two. There were neighborhoods of families visiting each other year after year after year. There was swimming and boating and ping-pong and softball and picnics and bonfires and card parties, day and night. We hated to leave, and go home.

We played together and then went our separate ways, back to the classrooms, to the kitchens, to the offices. We never thought we would always come back. So when we did, when we met each other again, there was this tremendous excitement! We were going to do it all over again! We were here!

So some of us have literally grown old, coming back to Greensboro. And those of us who live here now year-round have found that it is a different place. We still have our strong memories of visiting each other in the summer but we have added on fall, winter and spring.

In the fall, we button up our houses to keep the cold out and the heat in; we cut trees into blocks and split the blocks to fit our stoves, or get someone to do it for us and deliver enormous piles of split wood for us to stack. We put up wreaths and Christmas decorations and get a tree to smother in tinsel and lights and balls of historical significance, hung with care; and then, we eat and drink ourselves right into January!

In the winter, we hibernate. We move very slowly. Every day, we read. Our hair grows long; it keeps us warm. The snow and ice keep us inside. Once a week, we exercise. We wait.

In the spring, we welcome the sun. It cheers up! We throw off our blankets and run outside, just like the flowers! We rake the gravel from our lawns, we wash the car. We string the tennis racket. We oil the bicycle. We buy new shoes. We are ready!

In the summer, our friends come back. We can't wait to get together and visit, to catch up on what has happened to whom and when; to plan our days together, our outings, and to talk about living in Greensboro, forever.

Greensboro Association Newsletter - Summer 2009

By Steve Dryden
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, May 10, 2009

There's a saying in Vermont that the Green Mountain State is what New England used to be. And that the Northeast Kingdom is what Vermont used to be.

My family and I didn't know New England or Vermont in those good old times, so today's Northeast Kingdom -- the three-county northeastern corner of the state, bordering Canada -- is good enough for us. Every summer, we go there for a week or two of retro-relaxation. The weather is almost always perfect, the scenery superb, and there are no crowds. Best of all, we meet interesting, friendly people who often are involved in the creative arts or the stewardship of nature.

The 1,500-square-mile Kingdom was so named by the state's long-serving U.S. senator, the late George Aiken, because of its distinctiveness. When Aiken coined that term back in 1949, it referred to the isolation, independence and conservatism of the population. Those characteristics extend beyond human culture, since northern Vermont is on the edge of the vast boreal forest that stretches across Canada and supports flora and fauna (moose, white birch, gray jay, to name a few) that we residents of the mid-Atlantic states don't see in our back yards and parks.

Recently, with the flowering of a quirky counterculture and a finely honed 21st-century marketing strategy, the Kingdom was crowned one of the United States' first "geotourism" sites by the National Geographic Society. It's a concept that merges the more familiar idea of ecotourism (respecting and supporting the natural resources of a remote destination) with appreciation for the culture and concern for the well-being of a place and its people.

During our family's first visit to the Kingdom a decade ago, we stayed at the cozy Highland Lodge in Greensboro over Christmas. Outside, the snow was more than a foot deep, and temperatures stayed around 10 degrees. Yellow grosbeaks decorated the trees like living ornaments. Inside, my family and I had the place almost to ourselves. The Smith family, which owns the inn, celebrated with a few friends over breakfast on Christmas morning as carols played softly on the radio. My kids took over the table-tennis room; my wife and I read by the fireplace.

After two winter vacations at the lodge, we decided to try the Kingdom in summer. Renting a house by Greensboro's Caspian Lake in August, we discovered the perfect anti-Washington: The thermometer rarely rose above 80 degrees in the daytime (the nights require a blanket), and there were no mosquitoes to speak of. Now it's our default vacation destination.

More than a Room

Highland Lodge in Greensboro is a guesthouse and community center.

IT'S EARLY MORNING, and the snow crunches underfoot as we cross the dooryard of Highland Lodge, on a hilltop overlooking Caspian Lake in Greensboro. The inn and its surrounding fields and woods buzz with hundreds of cross-country skiers assembling for the start of the annual Craftsbury Marathon. Highland Lodge takes it all in stride. Welcoming the local community as well as those from afar—bringing people together—is what gives this inn life and character.

In addition to its regular lodging and dining business, the expansive 1860s farmhouse-on-the-hill hosts nature camps for children, weeklong knitting and quilting workshops, painting shows, talks on wildlife and historical subjects, and the Ladies Walking Society. Founded in 1991, the Society is made up of about 75 local women who stride up and down the hills of Greensboro three mornings a week, then gather in the inn for just-baked muffins and kindred conversation. "Every woman in town is invited," says Wilhelmina ("Willie") Smith, who owns Highland Lodge with her husband, David.

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