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West Dover/ By Nancy and Richard Woodworth If it weren't for the late ski pioneer Walter Schoenknecht and his vision for a showy ski resort called Mount Snow, West Dover might still be little more than a stagecoach stop on the back road from Wilmington to who-knows-where. It could have followed the path of Somerset, the sprawling township beyond Mount Snow's North Face, which has one of Vermont's largest lakes and nary a human resident – just the remnants of a ghost town vanished in the wilderness. Flushed with success from his Mohawk Mountain ski area in northwest Connecticut, Walt Schoenknecht developed something of a skiing Disneyland on a 3,556-foot peak slumbering above West Dover in the 1950s. It had a glitzy gondola, enclosed bubble chairlifts, easy wide slopes and a heated outdoor swimming pool in which people frolicked all winter. Here was the closest major ski and fun resort to Eastern metropolitan areas, and the snow bunnies from the city turned out in droves. Other ski areas, inns and lodges, restaurants and condos followed, and the boom was on all along the river that gives the Deerfield Valley its name. Mount Snow pioneered as a four-season resort with its own Snow Lake Lodge and an eighteen-hole golf course. It now bills itself as New England’s mountain-biking capital, and recently opened the 203-room Grand Summit Resort Hotel & Conference Center. Still, winter fun reigns around West Dover, and snowboarding and cross-country skiing are growing faster than the traditional downhill variety. High season is winter. Lodging rates generally are lower in summer, and vary widely depending on weekday or weekend, length of stay and holiday periods. While Mount Snow has evolved under the ownership of Killington and the American Skiing Co., so has the Deerfield Valley. Inns and restaurants are proliferating as West Dover takes ever more advantage of its place in the sun and snow. Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places in New England, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth, copyright 2004. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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