I'd always wondered about Middlebury Snowbowl, which opened in 1934, is still owned/operated by the prestigious college 15 miles to the west, and used by its ski teams and phys ed education programs. It's run more like a college-owned facility that’s open to the public than a traditional ski area. Between it being on the Indy Pass and the fact that we were staying 40 minutes away in a friend’s condo, there was no excuse not to check it out.
Here's the website's drone shot showing the upper 400 verts of the front side:
The Snowbowl is a classic "James ski area" similar in feel to defunct NY State favorites like Bobcat and Hickory but with a somewhat larger footprint. Per the website: three fixed-grip chairs and a surface lift serve 28 trails with 110 skiable acres as well as 11 marked glades that add up to 600 additional acres.
I've juxtaposed the newer trail map on the left (easier to read but charmless) with the slightly older painted one that provides a better feel for the terrain and shows you the trail pod that's lit for night skiing Wednesday through Friday:
The atmospheric, bare-bones base lodge dating to 1940:
Thankfully, they haven't replaced the handmade trail signs:
The area operates Wednesday to Sunday with lift tickets $58 on weekdays and $68 on weekends. There were maybe 50 people on the hill and virtually all of them looked like retirees. During lunch, we overheard a gentleman at the next table talking about needing a new “ski parka” and mentioning he’d left something at home in the “icebox.” That pretty much sums up the "very Vermont vibe."
While the vertical is only 1,000 feet, it skis bigger due to a well-designed layout (nice fall lines, several classic northeastern trails that wind intriguingly through the woods) so it doesn’t feel limited once you start moving around. Looking uphill from the base lodge, this woman was with her black lab puppy named "Cinder."
I didn’t get any in-action pix from the handful of laps I took by myself on the looker's right, just a few shots of my wife working with our son on the green Lang trail:
Full coverage in the woods:
A nice sustained pitch on the blue Proctor trail in the distance:
The only disappointments were timing-related -- the front side faces due north so on this late March day the snow softened somewhat but not as much as I would've liked. More importantly, the Bailey Falls chair that services the backside (where a lot of the signature terrain lives) doesn’t run midweek. Locals will tell you chapter and verse that not having that sector on the table takes away a big chunk of what makes the Snowbowl special.
Still, the overall impression was strong. This is a place with real character, nice terrain, and a great throwback vibe. I chalked up this visit as a useful reconnaissance mission and look forward to returning here mid-season when everything is in play.
Postscript: as the end of the season approaches, we grabbed a pair of virtually new Salomon boots for my son ($80) at a rental shop that was thinning its inventory and I ceded ownership of my beloved 2005 Volant Gravity 71mm skis to him. They served me well as groomer sticks up through 2013 and I'm happy that he'll be using them for the foreseeable future.
Here's the website's drone shot showing the upper 400 verts of the front side:
The Snowbowl is a classic "James ski area" similar in feel to defunct NY State favorites like Bobcat and Hickory but with a somewhat larger footprint. Per the website: three fixed-grip chairs and a surface lift serve 28 trails with 110 skiable acres as well as 11 marked glades that add up to 600 additional acres.
I've juxtaposed the newer trail map on the left (easier to read but charmless) with the slightly older painted one that provides a better feel for the terrain and shows you the trail pod that's lit for night skiing Wednesday through Friday:
The atmospheric, bare-bones base lodge dating to 1940:
Thankfully, they haven't replaced the handmade trail signs:
The area operates Wednesday to Sunday with lift tickets $58 on weekdays and $68 on weekends. There were maybe 50 people on the hill and virtually all of them looked like retirees. During lunch, we overheard a gentleman at the next table talking about needing a new “ski parka” and mentioning he’d left something at home in the “icebox.” That pretty much sums up the "very Vermont vibe."
While the vertical is only 1,000 feet, it skis bigger due to a well-designed layout (nice fall lines, several classic northeastern trails that wind intriguingly through the woods) so it doesn’t feel limited once you start moving around. Looking uphill from the base lodge, this woman was with her black lab puppy named "Cinder."
I didn’t get any in-action pix from the handful of laps I took by myself on the looker's right, just a few shots of my wife working with our son on the green Lang trail:
Full coverage in the woods:
A nice sustained pitch on the blue Proctor trail in the distance:
The only disappointments were timing-related -- the front side faces due north so on this late March day the snow softened somewhat but not as much as I would've liked. More importantly, the Bailey Falls chair that services the backside (where a lot of the signature terrain lives) doesn’t run midweek. Locals will tell you chapter and verse that not having that sector on the table takes away a big chunk of what makes the Snowbowl special.
Still, the overall impression was strong. This is a place with real character, nice terrain, and a great throwback vibe. I chalked up this visit as a useful reconnaissance mission and look forward to returning here mid-season when everything is in play.
Postscript: as the end of the season approaches, we grabbed a pair of virtually new Salomon boots for my son ($80) at a rental shop that was thinning its inventory and I ceded ownership of my beloved 2005 Volant Gravity 71mm skis to him. They served me well as groomer sticks up through 2013 and I'm happy that he'll be using them for the foreseeable future.
