Night and snow settling on LBJ’s Grocery, Worcester, VT. You can get garam masala and basmati rice here in addition to Bud Light and Hershey bars.
It’s been a busy winter, and I haven’t posted much, but I have been posting more regularly on Instagram (@lazenbyphoto), so if you have Instagram, follow! Meanwhile, I’ll be catching up here.
The 2018 Super Tour finals brought nordic skiers from across the country to the Craftsbury, VT, Outdoor Center for five days of racing last week. Panning (moving the camera with the action while it is set at a slow shutter speed) is often a matter of luck, and I lucked out on the above photo of the lead pack in the men’s 50-k freestyle race starting down a gradual hill. Below, the 50-K start, a skier at the finish, and young racers in the club relay held after the Super Tour relay. Bottom, America’s Olympic cross country ski medalists: left and right, Kikkan Randall and Jessie Diggins (gold, PyeongChang, 2018); center, Bill Koch (silver, Seefeld, 1976). Click here for a gallery of all the events. Use the right arrow to speed up viewing.
No matter what it’s doing where you are, it’s still winter at Mont Sainte Anne in Quebec, just down the Fleuve St. Laurent from Quebec City. Four feet of snow on the ground in the last week of February. Velo d’hiver riders (below) and skiers taking advantage of the situation while they can. Hydro Quebec electric lines humming loudly in the falling snow. For more, click here for a gallery.
It snowed. And we have more color in living black and white.
Well, actually it was back in early March, after the Lahti World Nordic Ski Championships. We ski toured in Lapland, northern Finland, in the Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park. Basically inn-to-inn skiing, complete with northern lights and daily saunas. The park is laced with hundreds of kilometers of trails groomed for classic and skate skiing, weaving through the low, rounded Lapland mountains called tunturi. We went on a week-long guided trip with a company called Feel the Nature/Fell Trek, made some new friends, saw some beautiful country, and ate munkki, the best donuts in the world. Because the Euro was so low and we were already in Finland, it wasn’t such a big expedition, although we were far enough north to be inside the Arctic Circle. We only saw the aurora borealis once, but it was an unforgettable night, temperature about 0 F and color dancing across the sky. Click here for a gallery/slideshow. You can use the right-click arrow to speed things up or move around in the gallery. 
The New England Nordic Ski Association held its first Eastern Cup of the 2016-17 season at Craftsbury Outdoor Center Saturday and Sunday. Hundreds of skiers from New England and eastern Canada raced, in heavy snow on Saturday, rain and freezing rain on Sunday. If you want to see more, click here for a gallery. (If the gallery slideshow is too slow for you, click on the right arrow to speed things up.)
I know it was 70 last week, but the first snow has arrived on Vermont’s Mount Mansfield, and skiers and boarders have been walking up to ride down. Right on schedule. These are from yesterday. Rocky and grassy in places, but skiable.
The April you want is not always the April you get. Especially in this state. From my favorite viewpoint on the North Branch of the Winooski River, Montpelier, VT.
A twofer: First snow and the dreaded fall foliage shot, all in one, Stowe, VT. The fall colors came weeks late this year, to mix with some early snow over this past weekend. Above, snow squall blows in over the valley. Below, Smugglers Notch and Trapp Hill Road.
So it’s April in Vermont and there’s still snow. Business as usual, except if you come from Ubon, Thailand, in which case it’s cause for curiosity and celebration. Perhaps followed by a large cremee, maple or otherwise. Part of a cultural tour of the Northeast arranged by Montpelier’s Linda Wheatley.
