IS STRATTON REALLY FLAT? I SKIED IT SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO
In today’s edition of ‘I did this thing so you don’t have to,’ I headed to southern Vermont to ski Stratton Mountain. I didn’t really go there so you don’t have to, but rather, it’s on my Ikon Base Pass and it’s the last mountain in the Northeast US that I’ve yet to visit on the pass this season (or ever). I like to ski all of the places, so naturally I wanted to visit Stratton. I actually had been trying to get there earlier in the week, but things kept coming up, and then yesterday looked like it could be windy, so today it was. This mountain has been nicknamed ‘Flatton,’ hence why I asked if it was really flat in this blog’s headline. We’ll talk more about that later.
*Just a heads up that I don’t know this mountain well, so most pictures don’t have captions.*
The village at the base of Stratton.
The ski area visible in the distance is Bromley.
Since it was my first time at Stratton, I wanted to soak it all in, so I made sure to stroll through the village at the bottom of the mountain. It’s a cool resort, but I wasn’t there to shop or eat, so I walked quickly and then headed up to ski for the day. Fortunately, there were no lines anywhere, so I was able to hop right onto the gondola.
Seen at one of the lifts. This made me laugh.
At this point, you probably know that it was really warm this week in the East, and then we had a big freeze yesterday. Unfortunately, between the warmth and the freeze, Stratton was only around 60% open, though that is better than some other resorts have fared. That number will likely go up, by the way, with some work by the groomers for the weekend crowd, as well as some fresh snow coming tomorrow.
They had 10 of 14 lifts spinning, which to me appeared to be all of the main lifts. The lift system here, I think, is really nice. All of the main lifts are high speed/a gondola. There are four lifts that access the summit, and the summit itself is pretty sprawling. There’s a lot of space up there. Three of the high-speed lifts that go to the summit all have their bases around mid-mountain, so you can lap those or just lap the gondola, which starts at the base.
View at the Mid Mountain lodge.
Weather-wise, it was a fine day. It was chilly, with temperatures below freezing. The wind wasn’t too bad. The snow was firm, and icy in places, but there was some sugar on top to make things manageable. I’ve skied worse this season — let’s just say that. Overall, coverage was decent enough on what was open, but there were some thin spots.
Looking up at the trails from the base of the Sun Bowl.
I don’t know this resort well enough to provide specifics, but I’m not sure there was a single run where there weren't a couple of bald spots showing exposed rock and dirt. Down-low coverage was pretty rough on some of the terrain, such as the runs under the lift in the Sun Bowl. The trees, which actually look really fun, are going to need some serious snowfall to get back open, in my opinion (though maybe not for the ones up high).
Some fun looking woods.
A groomer working on a trail.
As for the terrain itself, despite its ‘Flatton’ nickname, Stratton does have some steeper trails off the summit, and I found them to be fun. A lot of the steeper runs were closed today, but Frank’s Fall Line, Upper Standard and especially Upper Spruce were all enjoyable. The first two weren’t necessarily challenging, but Upper Spruce, which was my favorite run of the day, had a nice steep pitch to it.
The terrain elsewhere was fine, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. It was just standard intermediate and beginner terrain. Overall, I don’t think Stratton is an overly challenging resort and that’s okay. It’s a solid beginner/intermediate mountain, with some advanced offerings. That said, I believe Stratton suffers from the same problem Whiteface does: It just so happens to be easy to play around with the name. Whiteface becomes Iceface. Stratton becomes Flatton. Does that make it so?
Never Quit Skiing,
Lincoln