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Today's Quench'd guest is Callie Young, a cross country skier and coach from the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont. Callie spends most of her time as the Dartmouth Nordic skiing assistant coach, but every summer she returns to Craftsbury, VT and is the assistant coach for the professional ski team based there. Callie and I grew up racing together from elementary school through college and seeing her and all of her Craftsbury teammates was always the highlight of my weekends of racing.

When Carina told me that she was thinking of featuring a blog post on Craftsbury, I immediately knew that Callie would be the right person to ask. From youth to professional skiing, Callie has always worn the signature Craftsbury green and spreads their positivity and excitement about skiing everywhere she goes.

Go sprigs! - Charlotte

I’ve spent most of my life in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont (the best place on earth in my biased opinion). My family’s roots in the Kingdom go back 5 generations, and it’s hard to imagine truly calling anywhere else home. Everyone has their own take on why the Northeast Kingdom is so special, whether it’s a product of the beautiful landscape, the generous people, or a combination of both. But few think of the Northeast Kingdom and think of world class cross country skiing and everything else that comes with the Craftsbury Outdoor Center. 

The Craftsbury Outdoor Center is located in Craftsbury, Vermont, nestled in the heart of the Northeast Kingdom. It is a nonprofit with a mission “to support and promote participation and excellence in lifelong sports with a special focus on rowing, xc skiing, biathlon, and running.” They have programming for everyone from 1st graders learning how to ski for the first time, to their elite professional program, the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (GRP). In some ways, nestled in the rural NEK, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, the Outdoor Center seems like an unlikely home for a world class training venue that houses professional skiers. But it works. And it works so well not in spite of its location, but because of it. 

When I was about 10 years old, my dad, who was the Principal at Craftsbury Academy at the time, heard about a day camp for kids my age that was at the Outdoor Center. At the time, no one in my family really knew what the heck “dryland training” was, but apparently it sounded like a good activity for me and my pals for a week over summer vacation. At the time, the camp was completely organized and run by current GRP athletes, and despite not knowing much about Nordic skiing, they immediately became my idols. Among those athletes at my first BKL camp were Olympians Ida Sargent and Susan Dunklee, and many other accomplished elite cross country skiers that I was immediately quite obsessed with. In fact, Ida and Susan, just like me, were Kingdom kids who went to the same high school I would go to eventually. They were living proof that Craftsbury was a place where Olympians were made. 

For the next 8 years of my life, Craftsbury became a second home to me. It’s where I learned to love this crazy sport called Nordic skiing, but it’s also where I made some of my best friends and had some of the best coaches of my life. So it’s no surprise that after I graduated college, I came right back. This time, not as an athlete, but as a coach. That first summer out of college I was an intern for the Junior skiing program, and then for two summers after that, I assisted Pepa (the GRP head coach) with coaching the GRP for the summer months. 

And I’m not the only one who stuck around. If you find yourself at the Outdoor center on a typical August afternoon, look around the stadium. You’ll see Pepa shooting video on her beloved iPad of the GRP, then sprinting across the field to tell one of the U14s to get their hips forward. You might see current GRP members dunking on the BKLers in a game of speedball. Just 10 years ago, those GRPers were the BKL kids. You’ll definitely see former GRP athletes around. They might be coaching biathlon, BKL practice, or a Craft-fit class (think cross-fit, but it’s better because it’s Craftsbury). Later in the afternoon, current GRP athletes might be setting up for the weekly community trail running series, then timing a highly contested battle between former GRP athletes, local running legends, and community members while their kids duke it out in the 3 kilometer version. 

In my time as a coach at Craftsbury, I’ve contemplated Northeast Kingdom High school baseball rivalries with the juniors on 4+ hour run/hikes. I’ve taught my middle school English teacher how to corner better at a women’s mountain bike clinic. I’ve biked at Kingdom trails while listening to one of our juniors explain the nuances of working at the family creamery. The connections between the Outdoor Center’s mission, and the world that surrounds it are interwoven in a way that makes the Outdoor Center less of an elite endurance sport bubble, and more of a hub where people from all sorts of backgrounds come together. 

So no, the Craftsbury Outdoor Center isn’t an unlikely home for a world class skiing and rowing training center. It’s a place where the world of the Northeast Kingdom collides with the world of elite endurance sports in a way that isn’t quite replicable anywhere else. And for me, it’s one more thing that makes the Northeast Kingdom so magical.