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In order to enjoy Sugarbush you should be a competent skier. This is not an Okemo, Killington, Stratton or Mount Snow. There are no wide boulevards, or flatlands or clumps of beginners in
jeans trying to find their way down the mountain in terrified mode. For the competent skier, intermediate and up, the skiing experience is easy to difficult. When conditions are good, the experience is very agreeable. The
mountain and its trails are awe inspiring and impressive to the occasional skier. There are three distinct ski areas, Lincoln, Castlerock and Mount Ellen. You reach Mount Ellen, or "Sugarbush North" by either bus or by the Slide
Brook Express, a one of kind high speed detachable quad that takes you high over undeveloped terrain between North Lynx Peak and Mount Ellen.
There is preponderance of Blues, a whole bunch of Blacks and Double and Triple Blacks and a smattering of Greens in each area. On the day I was there, conditions were powder and packed powder on the upper two thirds of the mountain. The skiing was excellent and despite a full parking lot, the mountain did not feel crowded. A nice touch was a free cider station at the summit of the Gatehouse Express Quad. This is operated by Ski Ambassadors on weekends. What a nice gesture!
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As you might expect, things are by no means perfect at the Bush. Safe handling of food in the cafeteria is the same as it was on my last visit in 2000. At the As well, I have a bone to pick with the Sugarbush website. It is NOT built for the visually impaired and is decidedly unfriendly as far as navigation is concerned. Unless you are able to load Flash, you can't even navigate the site. There are no text links on the front page. It seems that management in 2003 allowed the geeks to completely take over so they could show off what they could do.. Perhaps whoever is responsible will look at the way Mad River Glen has designed its site. It is modern but still functional and loads quickly without the need for caching. Summarizing My attempts to contact the marketing department and the Public Relations department in preparation of this review were fruitless. I am not sure whether this was because they were too busy and /or overworked or because they know who I am and have chosen deliberately not to respond. In either case, it leaves me feeling that Sugarbush still has either some arrogant employees or employees with little training in customer service. The skiing industry is a service industry and requests for information and discussion should not be ignored, no matter how trivial. Of course, if I hadn't visited the restaurant, I would have enjoyed myself more and joined in the apres ski atmosphere. As it was, I did learn that Sugarbush has a lot of happy customers who like the way the mountain is being run, and the plans for its future. Sugarbush is a folksy mountain even though the terrain is immense and almost overpowering. It still has a lot of Vermont character and even has a hint of that "political correctness" one finds at neighboring Mad River Glen. I would recommend you try it, but I would also recommend brown bagging it.
Link to previous review of Sugarbush in 2000 Timothy Palmer-Benson March 2003 |
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This mini bus will deliver you to the
main entrance in about 15 minutes, depending on the number of stops it has to make. You can even take this shuttle to nearby Mad River Glenn. If you don't have a lot of bags this is a far better
solution on a weekend. However, there is another choice, a Sugarbush pick up truck that pulls a trailer with bench seats mounted on it. The truck circles the parking lot continuously on
weekends picking up skiers, but I didn't see it operating when I left around 4.00 pm.
My ski ticket was $57.00 including tax which is about the same amount of money that many Vermonters take a full
8 hour day to earn after paying tax.
I did run into a dangerous situation at the
Mount Ellen side of the Slide Brook Express. Snow boarders were swooping down from the Inverness trail and without slowing, racing through people gathering to board the lift. The reason for this appeared to be the ledge of the
boarding area which afforded some "air time" for these boarders as they raced down to the Terrain and Rail Park below. The ski patrol was nowhere to be seen!
Mushroom Brew Pub & Grill, the swankiest eatery on the mountain, I ordered a hamburger
French Fry combination and a Cranberry Juice. My order came without a napkin and cutlery and I was suspicious when my order appeared within a couple of minutes. The Cranberry juice was nothing more than
colored water (obviously problems with the pumping machinery here.) The whole scene reminded me of my previous visit. Obviously improvements need to be made here, starting with
staff training and food handling! If one is paying around $10.00 for meal one has the right to expect better service than this...surely? 