Lake Morey

Access: Fairlee Town Beach
226 Clubhouse Road
Fairlee, Vermont 05045
Click here for ice report
Many thanks to Kathy Jones for inspiring this long-winded narrative!

Since 1999, Lake Morey has been the principal incubator for Nordic Skating in North America. In 2025, with the Town of Fairlee taking over the hosting and maintenance of its legendary skating trail, Lake Morey has become a mainstay of Nordic Skating culture. But how did this small Vermont lake become the site of the nation’s longest machine-groomed ice skating trail?
When I returned to Vermont from my 1999 Swedish skating adventure, I started looking for a local venue where I could introduce Nordic Skating to the general public. Lake Morey stood out because of its two outstanding lakefront facilities: Hulbert Outdoor Center and the Lake Morey Resort. Hulbert was the ideal location for hosting outdoor events, and the 130-room Resort was perfect for lakeside lodging.
Vermont’s first wild skating tours
The first wild skating tours took place Christmas Week of 1999, in conjunction with Hulbert’s ‘New Years Family Camp’, when the entire lake was black ice. About 40 family campers of all ages took turns skating straight down the middle of the lake from Hulbert to the Resort, with the option of either skating back to Hulbert or catching a shuttle ride back. In January 2000 when the first snow fell, the fledgling Montshire Skating Club organized a shovel brigade to clear a path down the west side of the lake. But this was just the beginning. Over the ensuing decade the Montshire club supplied dozens of dedicated volunteers, without whom none of the events listed below would have happened.
Winterfest & Marathon Weekends
A year later, in January 2001, activities at Lake Morey expanded dramatically with the introduction of both a community recreational event (Lake Morey Winterfest) and a race weekend (U.S. National Marathon Championships). Winterfest was a combined event featuring ice skating, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, dogsledding, igloo building, winter camping and myriad outdoor activities centered around the theme ‘Celebrate, Don’t Hibernate’. It grew quickly to become Lake Morey’s largest event of the entire year, with a crowd of 600 attendees in 2003 and a resulting parking nightmare. Winterfest organizers were forced to scale back attendance in subsequent years, but the event’s success continued for a full decade with several hundred participants each year. Loaner Nordic skates, boots and instruction were provided free of charge to all takers - cementing Lake Morey’s reputation as a haven for recreational skating.
Also debuting in January 2001 was the Marathon Championship weekend hosted by the Montshire Skating Club, with 5, 10, 25 and 50-kilometer races on an oval course measuring between 500 and 2500 meters long, depending on the ice conditions. Attendance peaked at 100 racers in the very first year and then began to tail off. The combination of declining participation and adverse weather conditions forced cancellation of the event in 2006 and again in 2007. The event was revived in 2009, and the weather cooperated at last, but attendance fell further and it was never attempted again.
The Skating Trail & Lake Morey Skateathon
In the early 2000’s, Nordic Skating activities were concentrated at the Hulbert Outdoor Center, while the Lake Morey Resort focused on snowmobiling events. However in 2003 significant numbers of skaters began booking overnight rooms at the Resort. In order to give those skaters direct access to our events without having to drive around the lake, in January 2003 I plowed a narrow, one-skater-wide path up the east shore of the lake from the Resort to Hulbert. The path only lasted a few days, but it demonstrated ‘proof of concept’. So in 2004 we came back with better equipment, a longer and wider path, and a new event to showcase it: the Lake Morey Skateathon. This all-day event, co-sponsored by Nordic Skater an the Upper Valley Trails Alliance and hosted by the Resort, offered loaner Nordic skates and boots, and it gave participants the chance to answer the question ‘How far can you skate in a day?’ (The all-time record was 84 miles.) It also cemented the role of the skating trail, and provided the impetus to expand it from an east-shore out-and-back to a complete loop circumnavigating the entire lake.
The Upper Valley Trails Alliance, under the leadership of Wally Smith, wrote a grant and obtained $10,000 in funding to purchase equipment and hire an operator to plow the trail. This funding lasted for three seasons, and when it ran out, the Lake Morey Resort took over trail maintenance. The new generation of leadership at the Resort decided to call a halt to their snowmobile events and instead focus on building their ice skating business. They introduced Nordic skate and boot rentals, as well as hockey and figure skates. They purchased two Zambonis and launched a pond hockey tournament featuring as many as twelve hockey rinks laid out side by side adjacent to the skating trail.
Since then, Lake Morey and the Resort have become world-famous. Check out some of the publicity, from the year 2005 to the present:
National Geographic (Lake Morey is #1)
Travel & Leisure Magazine (Lake Morey is #13)
Northern New England Journey
New York Times
Boston Globe
On a recent winter’s day I met my two adult sons at Lake Morey and we skated a couple of laps around the trail together. My sons grew up skating on Morey starting at age 6, and being there again with them brought back a flood of memories: We went to Morey on school field trips; they helped me give Nordic skating lessons to first-timers; and sometimes we just packed lunches, met up with our friends and spent the whole day there.
The Lake Morey Skateathon continued to grow in popularity for 15 years, until climate change began to interfere with events scheduled a year in advance. No longer can we count on skateable ice on the same January weekend that we always used to; Mother Nature decides when the ice will be good, and our role is to seize the day. Happy skating!

Mascoma Lake

Enfield & Lebanon, NH
Access: Lakeside Park
194 Main Street
Enfield, NH 03748
Click here for ice report
Read more about machine-groomed trails in northern New England

Elevation 420 feet
544 acres
42’ maximum depth
28’ average depth

Elevation 751 feet
1158 acres
70’ maximum depth
30’ average depth

Above & below: The 3.5-mile Lake Morey trail on January 30, 2025, when the surface was almost entirely black ice a foot thick.

Above and below: Participants in Vermont’s first wild skating tour in December 1999 when the entire lake was black ice.
Right: Nordic Skating field trips for 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th graders became a part of the scene as the Lake Morey trail began to take shape.

The success of Lake Morey’s skating trail has spawned many imitations. The Mascoma Lake Skating Association was formed in 2020 to set up and maintain a machine-groomed skating trail. MLSA enjoyed three good seasons from 2020 through 2022, but since then the weather has failed to cooperate. Either the ice never reached the required thickness, or there’s been too much snow, or both. For the latest news on Mascoma, please visit the MLSA website or their Facebook page.