Stowe Ski Vacation Guide

Stowe's marvelous 330 inches of deep and fluffy Eastern powder is heaven for skiers of all ages and discipline levels.

Ski Levels

Goat, National, Liftline, and Starr are Stowe's famous Front Four and legend has it that you will not find any steeper, gnarlier, more difficult, more eye-opening and white-knuckle runs anywhere in North America. You don't as much as ski down the Front Four, you mostly just freefall! Experts may find Nose Dive, Chin Clip, and Bypass equally impossible to master. Intermediates can have great fun for the mid-level skillset at North Slope, Gulch, Standard, Gondolier, Perry Merrill, Main Street, and Upper and Lower Lord. Beginners will find everything they could ever want in the easy and safe runs over at Spruce Peak.

Stowe could legitimately claim to have the finest, most complex, and most comprehensive Terrain Parks in the eastern United States. Their amazing selection includes Tyro, the largest of Stowe's parks, featuring almost a score of exciting features including jibs, table tops, boxes, rails, rollers, and a quarterpipe. When you really want to measure your skills up against some of the most challenging skiing in the known world just head for Stowe’s famous and infamous superpipe, a competition-caliber pipe on North Slope. The Midway Mini Park is formally an intermediate level Terrain Park but when you ski it for the first time, no one will blame you if you think that it's quite a bit more challenging than that. It's an advanced park in disguise! The masterminds at Stowe have not forgotten the neophytes and the kiddies since Spruce Terrain Park is the absolutely perfect beginner's park, and is packed with a great selections of easy and safe features for to play on.

Après Ski

There is so much great dining right by Stowe's slope that the greatest difficulty is deciding where to go. Some of the more popular and affordable family friendly choices include the Midway Cafe, Jose's Cafe, the Depot Street Malt, Gracie's, the Octagon Web Cafe, and keep in mind that The Gables is the best place to go for amazing breakfasts that will get you ready for a day's skiing.

Want to come in from the cold for a bit? Topnotch Tennis Center offers indoor tennis against a live opponent or a computer-guided ball machine that plays like Bjorn Borg in his prime and will likely Borg-ify you right to the wall. There is so much to do around the Stowe area that it's difficult to know where to start: ice skate on Jackson Arena's Olympic-sized rink; rent a snowmobile at Farm Resort or Nichols Snowmobiles; enjoy horse-drawn sleigh rides at Charlie Horse (great name), Topnotch, Stowehof Inn, Edson Hill Manor, Pristine Meadows, or The Trapp Family Lodge. Julie Andrews not included. No trip to the Stowe area is complete without a visit to Waterbury and a free gorge of the samples at the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory, which will put all the weight back on that you lost exercising on the slopes.

Stowe Snowboard Vacation Guide

Rider’s Guide 

Stowe is a truly unique Vermont destination with a total of 12 lifts, comprising of three surface lifts, six double chairs, one triple chair, one high-speed quad, and one gondola for eight people that take you up to 48 trails where you can snowboard on their longest run of almost 20,000 feet. All this sits atop an incredibly deep 330 inches of fantastic Eastern powder. Their trails are rated 16 percent for beginners, 59 percent for intermediates, and 25 percent for advanced riders.

Parks and Pipes

You might go to a hundred major world wide resorts and not find one that makes snowboarding as such a priority as Stowe. The three penultimate terrain parks include Tyro, the biggest of the parks, which features more than a dozen different elements, including boxes, rails, jibs, tabletops, rollers and a quarter-pipe. If you’re still in for some challenges, it’s time to test your skills at Stowe’s superpipe, a competition-caliber pipe on North Slope. The Midway Mini Park can be just as challenging as Tyro and it would be doing it a disservice to call it an intermediate level terrain park. The Spruce Terrain Park is definitely the beginner’s park, though, and has lots of easy features for the neophyte and the kiddies to play on.

Out of Bounds

Vermont is a winter wonderland with ample opportunities for snowcatting, horseback riding, sledding, hot air ballooning, jeeping and off-road driving, rock and ice climbing, fishing and cross country skiing. Topnotch Tennis Center offers up some nice and warm indoor tennis against a live opponent or a computer-guided ball machine that will play full matches and likely beat you. Then go for a skate at Jackson Arena’s Olympic-size ice skating rink or go rent a snowmobile at Farm Resort or Nichols Snowmobiles. Feeling Christmassy? Then go on the horse-drawn sleigh rides at Pristine Meadows, Topnotch, Stowehof Inn, Edison Hill Manor, or the imaginatively named Charlie Horse or The Trapp Family Lodge. The hills are always alive there! Do not, repeat, do not leave the area without heading over to Waterbury and availing yourself of the free samples at the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory!

Hangout & Hookup

If you are looking for as much action at your après ski as you had on the slopes, you have to head on out the mountain road to the Matterhorn Bar where you’ll find a dance floor, a disc jockey, loud music, pool tables, a big-screen TV, a sushi bar and lots of friendly people who live by the motto that what happens in Stowe, stays in Stowe! If you are in the mood for something just a little bit less raucous, check out the local meet market at Miguel’s Stowe Away, or go dancing to live music at The Rusty Nail. Feel like a brewski? Ye Olde England Inne will let you choose from among 150 different kinds, but head to The Shed if you want to sample some local microbrewery golden nectar.

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