Stratton and Gore complete opposites

I am normally a Gore skier this year we purchased a Max pass (sad to see it disappear). I went to Stratton last Saturday and it was interesting to see the differences between Gore and Stratton.  I arrived about 9:00am and parked at the Sunbowl the lot and lodge were basically empty, parked maybe 100 yards from the lodge. I took the 2 high speed 6 packs to the summit. On the way up i noticed a massive swarm of people coming down I think Black bear. Turns out some runs were closed because everything froze up overnight and they have 2 high speed six packs, a gondola and a quad all going to the summit. Way to much lift capacity for the amount of trails, Gore has much better runs to lift ratio.  I should mention all the chairs were filled because even though the parking lots were not filled they have several thousand beds at the base and it was the end of the holiday week.  Clearly Stratton has a lot better snowmaking than Gore as most of the mountain looked well covered  after the thaw (I could have played golf on their golf course!, no snow off the trails). Gore also has much more variety than Stratton.

If Stratton didn't have the lift capacity they do, then there would be 2 hour lines all weekend every weekend.  It costs a lot of money to put that capacity in and they didn't do it to screw you with crowded trails.  It was likely done after getting tens of thousands of complaints about lift lines.

xWeatherMan wrote

I am normally a Gore skier this year we purchased a Max pass (sad to see it disappear). I went to Stratton last Saturday and it was interesting to see the differences between Gore and Stratton.  I arrived about 9:00am and parked at the Sunbowl the lot and lodge were basically empty, parked maybe 100 yards from the lodge. I took the 2 high speed 6 packs to the summit. On the way up i noticed a massive swarm of people coming down I think Black bear. Turns out some runs were closed because everything froze up overnight and they have 2 high speed six packs, a gondola and a quad all going to the summit. Way to much lift capacity for the amount of trails, Gore has much better runs to lift ratio.  I should mention all the chairs were filled because even though the parking lots were not filled they have several thousand beds at the base and it was the end of the holiday week.  Clearly Stratton has a lot better snowmaking than Gore as most of the mountain looked well covered  after the thaw (I could have played golf on their golf course!, no snow off the trails). Gore also has much more variety than Stratton.

You are comparing apple and oranges. Stratton can run only 3 chairs and you can still ski 97% of the terrain. Stratton lift capacity matches its 670 acres (Gore 440 acres). Despite the lifts you mention all going to the summit, they serve different terrain with some overlap.

Stratton also sees 2-3 times the skier visits that Gore does and  that explains why Gore seems to have a better lift to trail ratio. Gore is very underutilized. Black Bear is the easiest blue that almost everybody can ski so it gets a lot of traffic. On a non-holiday weekend, there are plenty of places to find uncrowded skiing.