I Just attended the most beautiful winter wedding here. Love that my family could stay together in…read morethe lodge, having access to two kitchens - in the main lodge, and in the round barn - everything was beautiful. Carol and Elizabeth were very friendly and accommodating.

Outstanding place, blending the best parts of a remote camp - bonfires, hiking trails, peace and…read morequiet - with clean, comfortable hotel-level accommodations. The hot breakfasts are amazing! But the best part is the beauty of the facilities, surrounding forests and mountains. There is no way to capture with photos just how beautiful it is! We had a June wedding there, and the innkeepers could not have been more friendly and accommodating. We highly recommend Sleepy Hollow Inn for a relaxed, beautiful gathering place!

Expansive. Uncrowded. Affordable…read more Being on IndyPass (and its local predecessors far before) I've rediscovered the joy of skiing Bolton Valley dozens of times over the past several years. It's a family-run, independently-owned mountain atop what feels like a winding, never-ending mountain traverse to a snow castle of three distinct peaks, each with its own personality and profile. A magical place so often ignored and eclipsed by the shadows of Vermont's trifecta of trees and trail count mega-resorts: Stowe, Smugglers, and Jay. But what Bolton lacks in quantitative vertical, it more than makes up for in qualitatively experience: endless untouched glades, sprawling peaks, and unrivaled affordability. It's a unicorn of beginner, intermediate and expert terrain that rivals the best glades of Jay or the sprawling multi-peak vistas of Stowe. Saturday 2/21/26's skiing with completely full parking lots and shuttle busses of visitors was still impossibly pristine and uncrowded on slope. Stunning glades filled with the hoots and hollers of fellow powder hounds tearing up pristine powder and poaching untapped stashes all through the day. An amazing apres ski waitstaff that ensure no one waited longer than a few minutes for service, and an unattended, self-service lodge food service setup that looked like something out of Star Trek. Let me illustrate further the superiority of Bolton Valley with a simple comparison: one day at a local independent mountain (Bolton Valley) vs one day at a corporate machine (Sugarbush). SATURDAY AT BOLTON VALLEY: riding up 10m lifts with zero lift lines, skiing uncrowded glades/trails laden with soft, natural powder atop zero ice - a natural consequence of force-limiting ticket sales with smaller parking lots, less traffic, and a family-friendly, independent focus. Window pricing $49 - $109/day, but equally skiable for an entire weekend on a modest $300 season pass (Indy). SUNDAY AT SUGARBUSH: riding up high-speed 5m lifts with few lines, but dumped into crowded trails laden with bumpy pockets of snow atop any icy, unpredictable base - a natural consequence of pushing hordes of skiers faster and faster up a mountain without any ticket limits that might ensure a better skiing experience. This is the fundamental choice we all make as skiers and riders: choosing to support independently-owned resorts who prioritize experience over exploitation, independence over incorporation, and presence over pace OR the continued corporate consolidation that threatens to make skiing an elitist, pay-to-play hobby of the one percent. As with all things consumer, we all have a choice of where to spend our dollars. Having spent decades skiing the mega-mountains, traveling across the world skiing mega-resorts across like Vail, Mammoth, Tahoe, and Park City I can legitimately say the experience is always the same: over-crowded, icy weekend skiing corporate Frankenstiens trying to solve an unsolvable problem of over-sold slopes with fake snow and higher pricing vs the still-here, uncrowded independents like Bolton Valley continue to over-index on reliability, affordability, and uniqueness. There's value in slowing things down, taking in stunning vistas, and paying a lot less to experience a lot more. See beyond trail counts and lift speed and you'll find an entire world of better skiing by generations of family-owned resorts beholden to a different master: your enjoyment, not corporate's bottom line.

I very much enjoyed Bolton valley. The slopes are very beginner friendly and the staff is very…read morehelpful and friendly. Night skiing was fun except for when I fell pretty hard and ended up with a swollen knee but other than that, I highly recommend. They have multiple lifts for different parts of the mountain and various levels. This is my go-to place for snowboarding in VT.

This review is for the Adventure Center specifically. I…read morewanted to love the experience but the staff is very scattered and the process to rock climb is ridiculous. We tried to climb multiple times and were told to come back. When we did come back at the right time (two separate times) they said the time changed. They don't let you reserve in advance (which would alleviate this problem) but most of all the staff was super rude and went out their way to be unhelpful (Katelyn from st albans - most of all). They could easily have helped but they did not and walked away with us standing there with upset kids (for the third time) For a cost and supposed level of service-- this is shocking. Been a big advocate of this resort my whole life but the atmosphere has sadly changed.

Our tour group took us here, for the Gondola View for Falls colors…read more I'm not disappointed, there were lots of snow up there, by the time we got there, it was very windy, and we're dressed like winter. Inside the upper building, there are shops, restaurant, a coat section with warm setting, and restrooms. We weren't having lunch here, it was packed! We already made plans, to eat elsewhere. Going up or down, even though it was foggy, and spitting, we were able to enjoy some of the view of the season! The gondola ride was still pretty amazing, being up there. It was fun!

Sprawling. Crowded. Pricey. As a longtime skier in the northeast, I lose a little bit of ski soul…read moreevery time I encounter the reality of $249/day window rate lift ticket pricing, like what Sugarbush and its corporate overlord Alterra have unleashed on former independent gems like Sugarbush. Yes, most people will never pay $249/day because they're buying $200 online tickets, but sit with that for a second... $200/day x 2 days for a weekend + food/gas/etc means at least $500 for an average weekend of skiing before you even get to lodging. And that's absurd. Its no exaggeration to say that setting day-of pricing to over $200/day is a marketing (read: extortion) ploy to advance sales of even more expensive multi-mountain passes like Ikon, intended to lock customers into a collection of other overpriced mega-mountains, ensuring customers never know what alternatives there are out there to the over-priced, over-skied, nickel-and-dime experience that modern corporate skiing with has become. And while most customers will mindlessly one-click renew their Epic (Vail) and Ikon (Alterra) passes each year, economically the only reason these passes makes sense is when you have plans for a week away at a different exotic ski resort under the same corporate ownership that epouses equivalently over-priced day rates. In case you missed it, that's an increasingly large array of Vail and Alterra's mega resorts, as consolidation within the ski industry continues its supernova trajectory, targeting any mountain nearing triple-digit trail counts as the next pin in their corporate hats. If that sounds extreme, it's not. It's the reality many of us who've been around a while have seen play out. And it's important to understand because of the very real, far superior options available to the mainstream corporate pass skiing experience. Let me illustrate by a simple comparison: one day at a local independent mountain (Bolton Valley) vs one day at a corporate machine (Sugarbush). SUNDAY AT SUGARBUSH: riding up high-speed 5m lifts with few lines, but dumped into crowded trails laden with bumpy pockets of snow atop an icy, unpredictable base - a natural consequence of pushing hordes of skiers faster and faster up a mountain without any ticket limits that might ensure a better skiing experience. I consider myself an expert skier, who's skied some of the steepest terrain in the world, but skiing icy, unpredictable slopes like Sunday at Sugarbush force-limits anyone's ability to improve, by defaulting to minimum viable slopes stripped of any natural snowfall. It's the equivalent of the mafia offering to fix your garbage problem that it, itself, created. It's the false claim of fixing over-crowded, over-skied trails with more snow-making and faster lifts... which just put more bodies, scraping more snow, creating more of a problem than existed before. However, more bodies on mountain = more food/bev sales for corporate coffers, which ever-present signage reminding you of $1/paper cup charges won't let you forget. Heaven help anyone who just paid $249/day at the window is not also paying for double-digit drinks and $38 pizzas - the horror! SATURDAY AT BOLTON VALLEY: riding up 10m lifts with zero lift lines, skiing uncrowded glades/trails laden with soft, natural powder atop zero ice - a natural consequence of force-limiting ticket sales with smaller parking lots, less traffic, and a family-friendly, independent focus. Window pricing $49 - $109/day, but equally skiable for an entire weekend on a modest $300 season pass (Indy). TL;DR: a split-view compare of independently-owned resorts who prioritize experience over exploitation, independence over incorporation, and presence over pace. Most folks reading this review will assume it's an advert for competitors. It's not. It's a rare insight into two mountains 45m from each other who've taken entirely different paths to profitability and achieved radically different outcomes: one driven to maximize pricing and bodies on the hill, another by nearly six decades of family ownership that's driven by affordability and great experience. As with all things consumer, we all have a choice of where to spend our dollars. Having spent decades skiing the mega-mountains, traveling across the world to ski other Alterra/Ikon resorts like A-Basin, Mammoth, Stratton, and Palisades I can legitimately say the experience is the same: over-crowded, icy weekend skiing in the corporate Frankenstiens trying to solve an unsolvable problem of over-sold slopes with fake snow and higher pricing vs the still-here, uncrowded Indies indexing for reliability, affordability, and uniqueness. There's value in slowing things down, taking in stunning vistas, and paying a lot less to experience a lot more. See beyond trail counts and lift speed and you'll find an entire world of better skiing by generations of family-owned resorts beholden to a different master: your enjoyment, not corporate's bottom line.

The farmhouse rental and ski repair shop which is the sugarbush ski service shop did a great job…read morewax and tuning the edges on my skis. I felt as though I had a new pair of skis after they worked their magic (took about a half hour in the morning). The grooming of the slopes and the friendly lift operators and mountain representatives were also great when I visited the mountain yesterday. The Ted's beef chilli stew topped with cheese and Jalapenos was a great lunch.

What skiing and boarding used to be...., before hedge funds and satanic corporations bent on…read moreextracting every penny from the public went on acquiring the vast majority of ski areas. Middlebury still has the mojo. It still has the customer service. It still has the small town ambiance. Still a place where kids can get dropped off by mom and dad to have fun. We came here through Indy Pass, the multi-resort pass that honors and supports independent ski areas. What a joy We got here and it was evident we were going to have a great time. No crowds. The customer service people were just super. A couple of skiers gave us points on where to go. The place has glades galore. A couple of the best runs can be pushers and so is the top transition between the two mountain side terrains. Other than one or the main runs used for racing and therefore groomed accordingly from top to bottom, some of the rest were groomed but still leaving plenty of room for ungroomed runs and natural skiing. We got there at 9:30 and had freshies and powder to suit us. Their cafeteria is small but plenty for the place. Truly a congenial and old school ski area. May it multiply to bring the best experience to every skier and rider.

Wowwww. I loved this lil mountain. One of the last remaining holdouts that hasn't been usurped by…read moreevil-company-that-shall-not-be-named, & you can literally feel it in the air when you get there. The vibes are so good. I can't even remember the last time I got a hand-written lift ticket - I laughed out loud when I got mine! It was only $55 for a half day which was 1 PM to 4 PM. That would be like one bazillion dollars if it was run by evil-company-that-shall-not-be-named. A pass for an ENTIRE day (9 AM to 9 PM) is $75 on non-peak days & $85 on peak days. That would be like fifteen bazillion dollars if it was run by evil-company-that-shall-not-be-named. I went to Middlebury Snowbowl with two friends, both of whom needed to rent gear. The attendants in the rental shop were super friendly & fun to converse with, & my friends were both geared up (snowboard & skis respectively) for a sensible $50, helmet included. It was time for me to put my teaching chops to the test, so we tackled the bunny hill first. It was equipped with a magic carpet thingamajig & had the perfect amount of slope for beginners - Not too flat so that you have to scootch uncomfortably to get any speed, & not too steep that it's intimidating for a newbie. We made excellent progress! My BFF/student was ready to tackle the chairlift, so that's where we went next. We asked the liftie if he could slow the lift down, since it was my friend's very first time riding a chairlift - & on a snowboard, which is even scarier! He gave us an evil grin, reminding me of Scar from the Lion King, & I swear he SPED the chairlift up. No matter. We made it work. So we took the Sheehan Chair up & the Lang Trail down. The best conditions I've ever seen? Absolutely not. Still very much enjoyable? Absolutely. After our tired & very accomplished newbie retired to the lodge, my skier friend & I explored the other side of the mountain using the Worth Mtn. Chair. Not as good! Many ice patches! Many flat spots! I even had to unstrap & basically ice skate across a flat sheet of frozen terrain at one point. We went back to the original side of the mountain & ran Lang & Kelton a few times to cleanse our palettes. We retired just before 4 PM, feeling incredibly satisfied & like our money was well spent. The whole experience honestly made me a bit emotional. Bear with me here. For me & so many other people, snowboarding has become almost inaccessible. I started at Yawgoo Valley (shout out Yawgoons) in 2011 on borrowed gear & a dream. For years after, I just made it work. I slept on couches, took 5 AM busses, saved up my paychecks to buy season passes, waited in line for Burton warehouse sales, rocked FLOW BINDINGS (ew) until they snapped, & generally just lived the snowboard bum lifestyle. I snowboarded, like really snowboarded, all the time. That's basically impossible now. It's not ONLY the fault of evil-company-that-shall-not-be-named, it's also the fault of the commodification of the entire industry, with a generous sprinkle of isms. That's why the SPARK is gone. That's why it costs more & not only do you GET less, you FEEL less. When an industry defined by "bum culture" is now financially, logistically, & socially impossible for bums to partake, what happens? It becomes a ghost of what it once was. If you've made it this far in my review/rant/diary entry, I commend you. Thanks for coming along for the ride. Shoutout Middlebury Snowbowl, I will definitely be coming back.

This place is old school. Loved it. Strongly recommend going when there is heavy snow on the ground…read moreas it can get thin. Loved every second of it.

Excellent groomed trails that cover a lot of terrain, good rental equipment.read more

My boyfriend and I went uphill sking this weekend there and it was gorgeous! Perfect conditions!…read moreThank you for the uphill ski rentals!

We had an unbelievable day at Dartmouth Skiway today…read more For starters. We didn't follow Waze and took the back roads from I-89 from Lebanon that took us through Etna, Hanover Center and a cornucopia of ancestral New England farms, town greens, historic churches, and beautiful country homes dating two centuries. Getting here itself was worth it. We arrived to a beautifully groomed Skiway and were able to park less than 100 feet from the main lodge. The lodge itself, a modern yet beautiful and totally New England building, is a one-stop building with everything one needs, inside. The Winslow Chair was the only side that was open today. Yet, it provided us with an amazing day of beautiful runs. Herman, a true New England trail, relatively narrow and often with a double fall line. Cum Laude, Hermans, Pass and Fail, and Post Doc, reminiscing of the academic environment that is very much part of the mountain. Every run had been exquisitely groomed. Ski Patrol presence was ubiquitous, adding to the safety consciousness of the place. Our lunch was superb. Definitely a place to come back to. Small, family oriented, challenging and totally welcoming.

What a beautiful mountain!…read more As an adult first learning to ski, I found Whiteface fairly intimidating. Just the drive in with its sweeping views of the east slope landscape is awe-inspiring. As an Olympic mountain with the greatest continuous vertical drop in the eastern US, this ski mountain has so much to offer for all levels of outdoor enthusiast. The Bear's Den area is the perfect launching point for little ones, new skiers, or those who prefer to warm up with an easy slope. If you're ready to jump in, there's a series of greens, blues, blacks, and more that can be accessed from their main lodge area by a gondola and several chairlifts to the mid and upper mountain. Even on busy days there's so many miles of trails that it keeps the crowds spread out to a degree. Can the lift lines get excessive? Sure. But if you're not picky, you can ski around (or stick to the upper mountain) and you can get a decent amount of runs in. Great mountain to level up on. In the past year I've graduated to some of their blues and finally made it to their highest lift (at 4,386 feet!) to soak in the amazing views of the surrounding Adirondacks. I've hiked many a mountain in summer this height but it was rewarding to catch a ride to the top and make my way down on skis. I appreciated the trail matrix available this year to gain a better understanding of which blues are easier and which start to verge on black so that I don't find myself in an overly uncomfortable situation before I'm mentally ready to do so. While all skiing is generally expensive, I feel you get a pretty good bang for your buck. Great facilities with a mid-mountain lodge. Fun events to watch if you catch them on a day you're already on-mountain. I caught both giant slalom and slalom this last trip. I'm clearly no expert but, I'm a fan of this location and am grateful to have the opportunity to ski here a couple times a year when in the area. I will have to hike it sometime to appreciate all that the non-winter season has to offer.

I have been trying to ski Whiteface for a while, usually one thing or another prevented me…read more Luckily this time I got a full day of skiing. Getting to Whiteface from my hotel in Lake George was easy; parking ended up being easy since I choose to park at the Bear Den Lodge area so I ended up almost to the lodge. I picked up my lift ticket RFID ticket from the electronic dispenser with no problem; by buying online in advance I got a discount price. The lodge was nice and even had racks available for free bag storage. I do appreciate that getting to the lodge and from the lodge to the lifts without having to climb steps. Overall the logistics were great for getting onto the mountain at the Bear Den area. The biggest downside I encountered was that the lifts were delayed almost 1 hour so that the groomers could redo the mountain since there was an ice storm overnight. I do have to call out the lift operator who kept us informed and entertained during the wait; it was much appreciated. Once the lifts were running there is one lift that gets you from the Bear Den area which is the beginner's area to mid-mountain and access to the rest of the mountain. Once I got skiing, Whiteface lived up to its Iceface nickname both early in the morning and then later in the afternoon. I was glad that they had regroomed the slopes so the skiing was good for most of the day. 3mmit and Lookout Mountain. I got to ski all 3 areas and really enjoyed myself. Little Whiteface was a bit limited since they had closed a whole face and one lift for race training. The Summit of course puts you up high and provides the choice to ski quite a few different trails and you can go to mid-mountain or the full 3000+ vertical to the base area. Lookout Mountain was opened later than the other areas and then was closed again for a while for regrooming; I was a bit disappointed by this since I found the Willmington Trail to be some of the best skiing on the mountain. A great long intermediate trail with fun twists and turns and variations in the slope, I would have taken a couple more runs on this trail if I had the chance. I really enjoyed skiing Whiteface, it is the largest vertical for any Eastern ski area. The lift system works well and navigating the mountain is not too hard. Having hosted the winter Olympics there is plenty of challenge and variety. Prices are reasonable, especially if you buy your tickets online and in advance. Because Lake Placid is a bit remote the lift lines were short. As long as the weather cooperates Whiteface is a great place to ski or ride.

This fun place is infused with creativity. The rooms are all filled with character…read more The owner makes a yummy breakfast and there are teas and coffee available whenever you want it. The location is walking distance to the adorable downtown which is full of shops and restaurants.

What a beautiful stay with a wonderful host. We had a delicious breakfast (one of the best I've…read moreever had and we're both major foodies), and great conversations. She really made us feel right at home. I don't sleep well places usually and I slept like a rock. We stayed in room 904 and the bed was a cloud. I wish we were staying more than 1 night during our week vacation here in Vermont from Michigan. Many instruments around the home you can enjoy and play. Since leaving this morning we've already discussed coming back in the future. You can't go wrong with choosing this home. Great walking distance to maybe places around.

Mad River Glen is a no-frills, civilized old school ski resort…read more No speedy gondolas, No lines, No outrageous pricing, and No Snow boarding allowed. Only skiers! And We love that!! This winter we're having more snow than usual on the east coast. Of course prime conditions for winter sports. If you can get out to ski and enjoy nature, especially on a weekday, this might be your ski destination. Enjoy! Thank you for reading. Have a great day! Stay safe and warm

I am writing to express my deep disappointment regarding my visit on March 19th. When I purchased…read moremy ticket on March 14th, your website listed approximately 40 open slopes; however, only 13 were open upon my arrival. Traveling from Pennsylvania, I chose Mad River Glen specifically because of its status as a co-op, preferring to support your mountain over corporate-owned resorts. Between the time of my purchase and my arrival, the region experienced record-breaking heatwaves and rain that decimated the snow, leaving the mountain in unskiable condition with bare spots and ice sheets. I reached out to customer service to explain these circumstances and requested a complimentary ticket for next season--not a refund--to have a proper experience. My request was dismissed with a generic statement regarding your website policy. I believe a cooperatively run resort has an obligation to recognize when conditions are so devastating that they should offer refunds or future passes to prepaid ticket holders. This lack of empathy is not what I expected from a community-based organization. As a result, I will not be returning to Mad River Glen and will be encouraging others in the skiing community to take their business elsewhere.