Being cool in Vermont

The Mad River, in Vermont

“I'm from Vermont, where to be stylish and cool is to have a dirty pair of hiking boots and know how to change a tire, hang drywall, and bale hay. Those people are my home, and every time I come home, it reminds me that there's something to be said for being in the spotlight, but it can never be a whole part of me.’’

— Grace Potter, singer, songwriter and actress. She’s from Waitsfield, in the Mad River Valley.

Downtown Waitsfield, Vt. It’s busier in the winter because of two nearby ski areas, Mad River Glen (whose motto is “Ski It If You Can’’) and the much bigger and fancier Sugarbush.

For three decades, the nonprofit Friends of the Mad River, created to protect the recreational, ecological and aesthetic resources of the Mad River Valley, has performed water-quality monitoring, river restoration, land conservation, public education and outreach on behalf of the watershed.

At the vertiginous Mad River Glen

The huge and rather fancy Sugarbush resort