Vail Resorts to Buy Stowe

LOL @ that price, lots of people are going to be waiting in long lines. Have at it. Always thought having a Stowe pass would be interesting for a season but could never consider it for the price. Now that the price is reasonable, it isn't worth doing because it is going to be one of the most crowded areas around. Good grief, lol.

Hoser wrote

Definitely Smuggs is high on next winters list.  Hit Jay and Sutton this year.  Not sure if Bolton or Burke worth visiting...thoughts?  

Yes, it both! Burke has a great trees. Vibe is still okay despite the crazy new lodge and high speed lift... stuff gets tracked out way faster. Great trees when they have snow, tough mountain when they don't have natural snow unless you love ripping steep groomed runs. Bolton is interesting, Preacher Woods area is fabulous despite limited vert. Great place to go for a low key powder day, they leave a lot of stuff ungroomed. Just wish the mountain had more continuous and continuously steep vert. I'd recommend hitting it as part of a longer trip, you'll be bored if you try to make a week of it.

Thanks for feedback on the other two areas.  Prob three days total, one day each, inc Smuggs, base camp in Burlington area for cheaper lodging.  Everything you said on Stowe is exactly where my head is.  

x10003q wrote

I could have added the MAX pass to my $450 Stratton non-holiday pass  for $300. That is pretty competitive with whatever EPIC will offer, plus there are 15 eastern areas on the MAX pass including Killington/Pico, Stratton, Okemo, Loon, Sunday River, Sugarloaf, Mt St Anne, Mt Tremblant, Wachussett, Sunapee, and Mountain Creek.

If you are a Stowe passholder, EPIC is a bonus only if you go out west and ski EPIC resorts. The other side of the coin is that Stowe will become even more crowded. There are other pass options for the other big Western resorts that are pretty competitive with EPIC and offer more than one Eastern area. For eastern skiers, there is a lot of variety that EPIC is unable to offer.

https://www.themaxpass.com/

Yup, the key is that, as you said, in order to use the Epic pass effectively, you have to ski out west at ...........Epic resorts. That won't work, because most Epic hills are super crowded, and, basically suck because of that. Add to that how screwed up Stowe is going to be on the weekends starting this season, and a lot are going to regret buying the pass. I predict that the police are going to intervene and turn away cars at the bottom of the Stowe road just for safety reasons, since I was told there were traffic jams all the way back to the village last year.
Benny went with the Max Pass, paired with the Mountain Collective. The deal breaker was adding the Orda mountains, so now I have plenty of Eastern skiing before I go out west again, where I have 17 days in Utah alone. No Epic madness for me no mo.

Benny - Live'n the life