Vermont: Smugglers' Notch, Smuggs Resort Teen Connections - Music, Via Ferrata, and Mountain Boarding.
Teen guests call it “The Notch” and know that “It’s good.” For parents vacationing with teens, it means a bored-no-more zone with stuff to do and best of all other teens. Smugglers' is known for its extensive programs for all ages, including a daily all-day summer camp program for ages 3-17. Activities inlcude water sports, pool time, hiking, biking, mountain boarding, diggerling, disc golf, geochaching, music, dances, and Vis Ferrata challenges.
Teens are perhaps the Resort's most outspoken guests. "You can't just sit a teen down with some cord and expect them to make macramé necklaces all day long," says Marge McIntosh, Activities Director. "They want variety, and they want friends to do the activities with."
With Smugglers' teen programs this year, "choice" is the key word. Younger teens in the Resort's Notch Squad program (ages 11-15) will have a core camp program that they can augment with "minors" in arts and crafts, nature and hiking, or adventure and games. Older teens in the Mountain Explorers group (ages 16 and 17) will meet in the morning, then plan their own daily itinerary from an extensive selection of activities including hiking, kayaking, climbing, high ropes adventure courses, visits to a swimming hole, and crafts.
Weekly evening activities for teens will also include a live band and karaoke. The Mountain Explorers group will celebrate their camp week with an evening hike, barbeque and swim time at the Resort's reservoir, RumRunners' Hideaway. Notch Squad campers will enjoy an overnight campout at the Resort's upper mountain base lodge. Parents can meet activities/camp staff at an informational session about teen programs that is held weekly at the Resort.
Smuggs offers several adventure activities well-suited to active teens - diggerling, mountain boarding, disc golf and Via Ferrata routes will give any teen bragging rights back home.
If a mountain exisits then it must be maximized for fun and summertime at Smuggs provides the opportunites. to go down the mountain several ways. Guests at Smuggs can try mountain boarding - a blend of skateboarding and snowboarding on wheels, go bike boarding - a blend of mountain biking and skateboarding on a three-wheeled scooter or practice digglering - a blend of mountain biking and skateboarding on a big scooter.
When cross-country skiing melts away it is time to play disc golf with a Frisbee-like disc. Disc golf is similar to golf in theory and is played with a set of discs meant to be thrown along a set course. At Smuggs the Woods Course provides offers a way to enjoy nature and a little completion along the way. The 10-acre wooded disc course follows the cross-country and snowshoe trails and connects a string of "tee boxes", "fairways", and "greens". The target on the green is a metal basket on a pole. Like the game of golf, each hole has a par ranging from three to five throws.
Via Ferrata or "Iron Way" is a perfect summer teen adventure. Via climbing routes have with permanently fixed cables, steel rungs, bridges and ladders. Smugglers' version of the Via Ferrata combines hiking along the Brewster River Gorge area with challenging encounters into steeper, narrower and more closed-in terrain. Groups are guided over four or five challenges such as a Burma Bridge and Tyrolean Traverse along the chosen path. Handrails with a foot rope and harness create the secure pathway over the bridge, and a harness and pulley system assist climbers with the Traverse. Most of the Smugglers' Via challenges will employ a cable and rope combination.
Need to know:The challenges are not high above the water or riverbed; adept youngsters as young as ten may participate. The Via challenges represent a range of difficulty with options to go around them. Smugglers' Via Ferrata was developed by Austin Paulson, who has been guiding international mountaineering expeditions since 1988. He is a member of the American Mountain Guides Association and runs his own guiding company called Peak Expeditions from his home base in Jeffersonville, Vermont.
To test skills and burn energy geocaching is also on the activity menu for teens. This a cool new sport is organized by the Petra Cliffs Climbing Center and Mountaineering School in Burlington. Using new (GPS) and old (compass) technology, participants will prowl around Smugglers' Notch and the basse of Morse Mountain looking for hidden treasures called geocaches. This is a great family adventure for ages eight and older.
Location on the planet. Smuggler's Notch Resoert 4323 Vermont Route 108, South Smugglers' Notch, Vermont 05464-9537.
Make it happen.Toll-free 1-800-451-8752, (US & Canada), 0 800-169-8219 (UK) or
www.smuggs.com
