My visit to Middlebury College Snow Bowl served two purposes: discovering a new area and avoiding the holiday crowds. Ski on lifts, empty trails, and elbow room in the lodge are luxuries not antithetical to the busiest holiday weekend of the year. Enjoying these luxuries requires thinking outside of the box and a sense of adventure; a lack of fear that smaller might mean less fun despite less hassles and headaches.
The Snow Bowl is one of only two ski areas in the eastern United States operated by a college (Dartmouth Skiway being the other). While it’s obviously dedicated to collegiate racing, Middlebury has a nice family area feel. Though its two premier race courses, Allen and Ross, are very steeply pitched, the rest of the area is somewhat mellow with occasional steep pitches. The trail map does not do the ski area justice as it skis bigger than the trail map and its vertical might suggest.
Middlebury has a vertical drop of 1050′ which is similar to Balsams Wilderness and Black Mountain (NH). The topography is more akin to Black Mountain with its rolling layer cake of steeps followed by flats. But whereas Black Mountain retains narrow trail old school character interspersed with cliffy knar, Middlebury’s trails are wide open in favor of its racing heritage. Glades are fairly limited at Middlebury with three short on map glades and nothing off map that I noticed. The Snow Bowl has distinguishable undulating terrain and many geographical oddities and spots an incredible view.
Conditions during my visit were abysmal. The recent rain/freeze event took its toll on Middlebury’s snow conditions; though all 17 trails were listed as open (the glades are not listed on the snow report but were most assuredly not skiable). Allen and Ross received nearly edge to edge grooming the previous night but most other trails received a pass or two at best and occasionally no grooming at all. This was astonishing for a race oriented family/locals mountain. After a complete tour of all non-beginner trails in under three hours, I called it a day. This might be the worst conditions we will endure all season.
3 thoughts on “Middlebury College Snow Bowl”
Congrats on this new area. There are a bunch of medium size areas I would love to hit in the Northeast, however it doesn’t make sense on weekend trip for myself. In fact, I have a few medium size places that have been on my list in Quebec also. Not sure how much more of Vermont (8) and NH (6) ski areas I’ll get to ski at.
I had my sights on Pico ever since I saw it back in May 1984, however priorities sometimes point skis elsewhere. I got a voucher, I just need to get down there.
Considering your drive time, I really can’t see much point in your visiting many of the mid-sized areas in New England. I can tell you that I probably won’t ever return to Middlebury or Balsalms. On the flip side, I try to make a point of skiing Black NH once per season and I hope to return to Mount Abram in ME at some point. Still on my list include Suicide Six, Whaleback, and Dartmouth. I suspect all three will be “one and done” areas.
Pico is an interesting area. Its soooooo close to being a top tier area. It just falls short in a few key areas including sustainable steep terrain and trees. It has moments of brilliance and a few key trails that make it a “must ski at least once” area. But it doesn’t have the staying power to make me want to keep going back every year.
Much like I have a hard time driving south and south west to ski, you have a similar problem in that you need to pass by the best of New England to ski most of the mid-sized areas. To ski Pico, you’d need to drive right past Smuggs, Mansfield, MRG, and Bush (Whiteface in NY, too)! To ski Black, you’d need to drive past Burke, Cannon, and Wildcat plus Pinkham.
Eastern Townships and Quebec City trip are must dos for me. But for the rest of Quebec and Onterio areas, can’t say I have much desire even to see new areas.
From what I heard, things were not great anywhere. I enjoyed my time there a month ago, during another blackout period. Like Black NH, when it’s good, it’s very, very good. When it’s bad, it’s very, very bad. Then again they don’t feel the need to maximize revenue, which is a good thing; they can focus. Guess we’d better get our GS skis out with uber-sharp edges and start racing again!
Thanks for the reportage.
Better things to come!