Late Winter 2026 | 3
VAST News
We had to make up time so we took 
a direct route to April’s Maple. Gov. 
Scott and his daughter Erika led the 
way into April’s and the waiting 
crowd right on time. April had a very 
nice lunch buffet of maple-infused 
treats for all to enjoy while the 
governor tapped a few trees & chatted 
with the guests. An hour later we 
were back on the sleds and headed to 
Island Pond. I took us up and over a 
glistening Sable Mt., the sun shining 
bright and the snow glimmering like 
diamonds on freshly groomed trails 
and back to East Branch. John led 
us to the Overlook where we were 
able to take a few pictures, enjoy the 
views and have a few minutes of light 
conversation and some laughs.
Chris took the lead and brought us on 
a great route over more scenic trails 
into Island Pond. Getting close to 
IP, I noticed we had separated from 
our group. I stopped and waited and 
eventually turned around. When I 
came upon our group one sled had 
run out of gas. It couldn’t have been 
scripted better that it was the quiet 
and classy Ericka and although we 
didn’t know it at the time, her dad was 
out of gas a ¼ mile ahead. After a few 
laughs and a quick gassing up by a 
couple well-prepared group members 
we were on our way.
We stopped at the Dave Paige 
memorial for a photo and a memory! 
I had a chance to ask Gov. Scott if 
he got many days like this. He said 
“not hardly but this day had been 
absolutely perfect from beginning to 
end”!
Island Pond greeted us with a 
delicious fish fry and Gov. Scott got 
to do a little ice fishing! CBR, NEKSB 
& TBSC members pulled it off. The 
grooming crew from all three clubs 
performed at their best and gave the 
governor, Ericka and his people just 
shy of 100 miles of the best damn trails 
in the Northeast Kingdom!!
On this day politics were left out of 
the picture... agree, disagree, voted for 
or against just didn’t matter. It was 
a group of friends, some new some 
old, just enjoying the great sport of 
snowmobiling!!
“Absolutely Perfect from beginning to 
end” Just like the VAST trail system!

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