By Katy Savage, Vermont Standard

HARTLAND, Vt. — Inside Lauren Anderson’s home, there is a picture of eight grown children hanging underneath the stairwell. Two of the children in the photograph made it to a national snowboarding championship, another was a top slopestyle competitor, another won gold in snowboard cross at the Winter X Games two years ago. Another — Jamie Anderson — is the top woman slopestyle competitor in the world and is set on competing for the Olympic team in Russia this winter.

Lauren Anderson went from Tahoe ski mom to Vermont alpaca farmer. Photo/ Katy Savage/Vermont Standard

Anderson’s Hartland home is a long way from the Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort where she devoted her life to raising a team of professional skiers and snowboarders. Now, Anderson’s devoted to the three alpacas in her farmhouse garage.

“My mom has always loved Vermont and she’s been talking about it my whole life,” Jamie said. “When she had the motivation to pick up and move and make the journey all the way across the country … I was surprised, but I also 100 percent supported her to follow her heart and do what makes her happy.”

In September, Anderson drove across the country in her Mini Cooper that Jamie won in the U.S. Open the year before. She moved into a small farmhouse off Rice Road in Hartland to follow a new passion: alpaca farmer.

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