WARREN, Vt.—"Today" hit the slopes Thursday.
Taking a "winter break" from its New York home, the NBC-TV morning show aired live from Sugarbush Ski Resort, showing off Vermont in a four-hour broadcast that showed Matt Lauer on a moonlit ski outing and co-host Meredith Vieira taking a "penguin plunge."
"I'm much warmer since a took the plunge," said Vieira said, who jumped into Lake Champlain on Wednesday to benefit Special Olympics Vermont, raising $20,000. "If you get numb, in a weird way, you can't kind of get out again," she said.
With cheering fans waving signs, blue skies above and the temperature a chilly 4 degrees, the show's co-hosts took to the hills, experimenting with snowbikes and switchboards and visiting with Olympic gold medalist snowboarder Hannah Teter.
They also sampled a new ice cream flavor -- coconut seven layer bar -- from Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.
"So many people visit here each winter and guess what? So many visitors decide to stay," Lauer said in one segment. Forty percent of the people who call Vermont home come from somewhere else, he said.
"It's been said that Vermont is not just a state, it's a state of mind," he said.
