Stowe vs. Sugarbush

A

armxskier9

Member
I'm starting school up in burlington this year and i'm torn between which mountain to buy a pass for. Does anybody have any insight as to whether Stowe is worth the extra $75, or should i just pay the $300 fir Sugarbush. Thanks.
 
sugarbush has definitely dissappointed in park department in past 2 years, they try, but seem to fail a lot. Stowes park was decent last year and you have way better terrain for real skiing, smuggs t bar is poachable during week for laps in a fun little park, jay is fun too but its a drive.
 
how far is smuggs from burlington? you should just not buy a pass to smuggs. they don't check tickets (if your riding park)
 
i go to sugar bush, but only because i can get a pass for 129 to the north side. i used to go to stowe and it defenetaly has better terrain for real skiing. sugarbushes park also kinda blew this last reason.
 
stowe is worth the money but if ur going to school up there you should beable to get somekind of student pass for cheap
 
Cheaper, yes, but better skiing, sometimes. I have skied Mad river for the past 9 years, and its better for terrain (and no snowboarders) but if hes looking for park or groomers or something then sugarbush down the road is good, and smuggs is sort of a gamble, can be good, can be shit. all are like 45 minutes from burlington, and sugarbush is like 50-hour depending on conditions. or just get a bash badge at smuggs and go there when its good, because it gets real nice sometimes
 
mad river is not where you want a pass if last winter repeats or worse, paying for a ticket there on a pow day or 2 however could be a good investment
 
Jay Peak and Bolton Valley have a joint night pass for like 230 i believe, but after making the mistake to go to sugarbush last year, I am all for Stowe, I had a pass their my freshman year and it was the best skiing season ever.
 
Stowe. As put by Hctiws_iks: Sugarbush is a pile of infected dog shit covered in vomit and burning hair. Seriously though, sugarbush has the most astonishing case of fucked up grooming and park design ever unvieled on the north american hemisphere. i would sooner ski on a mound in kansas. The only reason i am going to return there is to fuck up their handrails with my skis.
 
its only bad on weekends and vacation weeks. so goto jay on those days.

i had a pass at stowe, smuggs, and jay last year and stowe is the best (only cause the ride home from jay sucks so bad)
 
yeah and they also just raised the prices for passes by like $100. but ill be skiing there anyway. but def get over there on a good pow day
 
Smuggs and Jay are much better than both mountains. I had a pass to Sugarbush last year and it sucked. I skied there about 5 times all winter because it was so terrible. Stowe can be fun on a good day, but it can get super crowded and they need to move their parks to another trail.
 
Hey guys,

I work at Sugarbush Resort and have information for college students and you freeriders out there. (I have been reading the forum and I wanted to reply to some of the things that I have read.)

1) Stowe vs. Sugarbush. If you considering a pass between the two mountains there are multiple things to consider. First for college students, the Stowe pass starts aroiund $450 and has black-out dates on all major holidays. Sugarbush's college pass starts at $319 and never has black-outs. Right there, when you have the most free time Stowe will not consider you a customer. Kind of insulting huh?

Now consider this, if you paid a lot more for less would that be thought as a good deal? Sugarbush has 2 Mountains, 111 cut trails, 11 gladed areas, and 4,000 acres of terrain (265 cut for trails). Stowe has 1 mountain and 48 trails. Which represents the better value? We also have some of the best terrain and best woods in the East. You decide

2) Park & Pipe. Last year admittedly was not a great winter season. Due to ununsually warm temps and we didn't get the average snowfall. AS a result we had to focus our snow blowing efforts on the main trails to keep the mountain in working shape. Even though we tried to maintain the park, and we changed it a few times, there was a lot of grumbling about it. As a result, we have hired the Super Parx crew (www.superparx.com)to redesign and rebuild our park. We are also adding a jib and rail park near the base of Mt. Ellen with a pipe. We are adding 22 new rails between the 2 parks. The main park (which has lift access) will feature the more advanced hits (table tops, etc.). WE have infested 3 times as much money this year to keep everyone happy so don't count us out yet, last year was not a good indicator of what Sugarbush really represents. Thanks and we look forward to seeing you on the slopes this winter!
 
Dear Montage,

If I worked at Stowe you are correct, it would be the same speech since I merely quoted the facts about pass pricing and mountain stats. I was providing a valid comparison for individual

Sugarbush and Stowe are 2 of the main destination resorts in VT. Sugarbush does not "suck" as you put it, why else would it be ranked as one of the top resorts? If our terrain were poor then why would so many accomplished people ski & ride here. Think about this, John Egan (pioneering big mountain skier, owner of numerous first descents around the world, movie producer, etc.) is our Adventure Learning Center Director. Doug Lewis, 2 time Olympic downhiller is our race director. David Babic, current U.S. Freestly Skiing Champion also calls Sugarbush Resort home. Our resort is not for everyone, we know this, but it is a place that people can progress at for their entire lives.
 
sugarbush-res if you work at sugar bush do think you could try to convince the people at sugarbush to start posting updates of the park here in the park updates section. Would it be possible if you could make the plans for the park open on mayb like the fly sugarbush website and let people give you some feed back on the park design

thank you please consider my suggestions
 
Miniskier,

I will work on getting updates to this site, especially with the park info. We are excited to see what the Super Parx crew can create for us.

As for the Fly Sugarbush website, I have talked to our web guys and they are going to update the information to include the new hits and rails. We will also throw in some photos once the park is open for all to see.

We appreciate the constructive criticism and are always open to suggestions. Although we can't change everything it never hurts to ask! See you on the slopes.

-Sugarbush
 
Stowebum,

Given the hand mother nature dealt us last season, we did manage to maintain our mountains very well. It is hard to blow quality snow when the temps are in the 30's. Last January and into February, the average temp was the highest on record for the entire country. As a result, when we could blow good snow we did; we actually blew more than 13% more snow than last year.

Ideally, you want to blow snow when the temps are in the high teens, otherwise you are basically spitting money onto the trails and wasting snow quality.

Our mountain ops guys dealt with a lot set backs due to wind, rain and heat and still we managed to keep the resort open for 154 skier days. The only resort in the East that stayed open longer was Killington (155 days), but they always manage one more day than everyone else!

As for the terrain count between Stowe and Sugarbush, I hope you weren't alluding to more physical aspects of the mountain because there is no comparison....Sugarbush is much bigger. As for your personal preference, you don't have to like all mountains. Just like you prefer Jay Peak, I prefer Sugarbush which is why I moved here. Take care.
 
your statistics and shit might be right but its not always about who has the more trails and shit, its about who gets the most snow.. the best snow. and actually pays attention and cares about their park
 
For the mist part the people on this website arent going to give a rats ass about the number of groomed runs. They want either park or backcountry, after that add as many groomed runs as you want its not going to change shit. Also, if you wanted to be honest you would have included the total creage of Stowe as well, you only included yours. Thats a deciding factor in its own respect, but whether the stats show it or not, these people will know whats in the area thats fun to ski.
 
Dont give us that shit. iI'm from a mound up here in the midwest, we are LUCKY to get temps to stay in the 30s, fuck we ski in 40s or 50s in the middle of the season, so dont complain about your fucking snow conditions.
 
sugarbush used to have a better park and worse woods, now they have a much worse park....and still worse woods
 
sugs isnt as bad as all these kids are making it out to be, a lot of people are kinda hopping on the band wagon. but seriously... last season there were some things that the mtn could have done better. primarly, for me and most of my crew, park managment. there was no manager for quite some time, and when there was, he was pretty chill... but the groomers were lacking as well. but w/e there is only room from improvment i guess. and if not... then only two more years anyways and im out west baby.

seriosuly tho... i might have been able to ski trees three times last year...
 
i didnt read all the posts cause im too lazy to read that much at the moment, bet check out the thread in the New ENgland forum. there gonna put a ton of stuff in there park this year. i havent been to either of the mountains though
 
Snow720-

It's all relative. Vermont gets colder temps usually, so when anything is about 30 for a month, it is very strange. What I said was not a personal attack about any resort or anybody, you must realize that.

The Mid-West is not Vermont. Just like a resort in Colorado might get more annual snowfall, I don't compare that to us since it doesn't make sense. If average snowfall and average temperature are off significantly, then of course it creates problems.
 
STOWE is the shizz..no other east coast mtn can touch it...if you wanna ride at a real mtn, and have an ill crew to ski with Stowe is the way to go.
 
haha average annual was off everywhere.... yea you are right it was. alta has been getting wayyyy too much snow these past years.... probably why the east hasnt gotten any.
 
Sugarbush was great last year when it snowed, like december and march. Right around new year's it started raining and it didnt really stop until the end of february
 
Hey Sugarbush rep guy, are the people from that company going to be maintaining the park? cause if not, you should have whoevers in charge of that come on here and join the park designers cult for park managing advice and the sugarbush ridas cult so they can get feedback and whatnot.
 
ummm... correct me if im wrong, but i belive the rail jam is free, so it is not nessisary to have a pass to be able to go to the jam.
 
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