Ski Area Food Prices

Big Spruce is still very unpopular to ski at Stowe as is Whirlaway. That trail has not changed at all. I spend more time than ever these days on Big Spruce to avoid lift lines and people. If I'm skiing Stowe on a weekend, I ski Mansfield side open until 10-10:30 then head over to Spruce where I'll ski and enjoy a killer lunch until about 1:30-2:00 before heading back to Mansfield.

Same as its been for the past twenty years, the trees on the Spruce side don't get hammered nearly as bad as the Mansfield side.

dlague said:

That darned Bicknell’s Thrush is impacting Cannon and Jay Peak too!



I think they might of missed something!

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I'm thinking that maybe the chef's at Stowe need to serve up some roasted Bicknell's Thrush over say a mushroom risotto with maybe a port wine reduction on top with a nice mixed field greens salad to help just put Bicknell's Thrush out of our misery ;-) :lol:

or treat the bird like an Ortolan

steamboat1 said:

Spruce ski's much differently now that the chair doesn't go to the top anymore. They've eliminated some of the best terrain on the mountain. Actually I don't like the new layout. The base lodge & hotel are beautiful though. I'm sure the new buildings will be too.

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Come on. You're now left out of what, 100 feet on Main St and 200 on Smugs ans Sterling? The lift is just as long it just has a new alignment down on the shoulder. There wasn't even any snowmaking on Upper Spruce before the Quad went in.

The change was nowhere near as drastic as the neutering of Rams Head.

Newpylong said:

Come on. You're now left out of what, 100 feet on Main St and 200 on Smugs ans Sterling? The lift is just as long it just has a new alignment down on the shoulder. There wasn't even any snowmaking on Upper Spruce before the Quad went in.

The change was nowhere near as drastic as the neutering of Rams Head.

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Whatever, I don't like the new layout & you're losing considerably more than a couple of hundred feet.

Old Spruce chair 6,400ft. new Sensation quad 5,889ft.

That's like saying who needs the Superstar, Cascade or Downdraft headwalls. Upper Catwalk forget about it. They're not important.

You know it's a pretty easy to hike up Swirl to the old Ramshead summit too. See very few tracks coming down including upper Vagabond. Might have something to do with the fact it's not lift serviced anymore.

Yesterday I went to Blue Mountain, Pa with my daughter. We stopped for lunch up at the restaurant up at the Summit and it was incredible. Ski right up and there's a beautiful view inside and out with balconies, fire pits, outdoor pub and an inside restaurant with full service, bar and great food at very reasonable prices. You could get appetizers, burgers, salads, wraps, full course meals, dessert, drinks, etc...Just like at any nice restaurant.

Yes, it took a little longer to eat but we each got an excellent crab cake sandwich with fries (you can upgrade to sweet potato or Bay fries for an extra $1.50) and drinks for $32 plus tip. I would've paid about $10 less for a meal for us in the usual serve-yourself careteria complete with dried out, overpriced tasteless food. It was well worth the extra money. Best meal/ambience I've ever had at a ski resort. The Killington Summit Lodge has incredible views but its still cafeteria style. This was an actual restaurant. I could've hung out there for apres ski and had a few beers and wings but we had to be home at a certain hour. They have a nice online deal at Blue were you can pay $99 online Monday-Thursdays for 2 tickets and a $40 voucher for food at this pub. WOW! We'll be back!

Nice thing too is that it's set up as a regular restaurant. You can drive in off the road to get to it as well and the Appalachian Trail is nearby so I'm planning to some hiking there and check out that restaurant in nice weather too. It's that good.

After that luxury, it's going to be tough to go to Belleayre tomorrow and deal with what is undoubtedly the same old/usual food situation so I'll just eat a good breakfast and bring a few Kind Bars and some cheese to keep me going while skiing and save my appetite for when I get into New Paltz for dinner that night.

catskillman said:

Try, if you haven't yet, Twin Peaks in Tannersville for breakfast. You can watch the donuts being made to order. Assembly line format. Also, Karen't in the art gallery building in Hunter is very good. (Plug for the locals)

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Thank you! Next time I'm up there I will check those out. I hope to get back up to Hunter before the ski season ends but even afterwards, I go up that way a lot to hike/camp and love a good meal in town .

Wavewheeler said:

Yesterday I went to Blue Mountain, Pa with my daughter. We stopped for lunch up at the restaurant up at the Summit and it was incredible. Ski right up and there's a beautiful view inside and out with balconies, fire pits, outdoor pub and an inside restaurant with full service, bar and great food at very reasonable prices. You could get appetizers, burgers, salads, wraps, full course meals, dessert, drinks, etc...Just like at any nice restaurant.

Yes, it took a little longer to eat but we each got an excellent crab cake sandwich with fries (you can upgrade to sweet potato or Bay fries for an extra $1.50) and drinks for $32 plus tip. I would've paid about $10 less for a meal for us in the usual serve-yourself careteria complete with dried out, overpriced tasteless food. It was well worth the extra money. Best meal/ambience I've ever had at a ski resort. The Killington Summit Lodge has incredible views but its still cafeteria style. This was an actual restaurant. I could've hung out there for apres ski and had a few beers and wings but we had to be home at a certain hour. They have a nice online deal at Blue were you can pay $99 online Monday-Thursdays for 2 tickets and a $40 voucher for food at this pub. WOW! We'll be back!

Nice thing too is that it's set up as a regular restaurant. You can drive in off the road to get to it as well and the Appalachian Trail is nearby so I'm planning to some hiking there and check out that restaurant in nice weather too. It's that good.

After that luxury, it's going to be tough to go to Belleayre tomorrow and deal with what is undoubtedly the same old/usual food situation so I'll just eat a good breakfast and bring a few Kind Bars and some cheese to keep me going while skiing and save my appetite for when I get into New Paltz for dinner that night.

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I've eaten there 3 or 4 times this season. Really hoping this continues. My fear is that they are just really just putting forth a good effort since the restaurant is new. BTW, the lamb gyro is really good. Also had Dogfish 90 Min on tap.

Jersey Skier said:

I've eaten there 3 or 4 times this season. Really hoping this continues. My fear is that they are just really just putting forth a good effort since the restaurant is new. BTW, the lamb gyro is really good. Also had Dogfish 90 Min on tap.

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Yes, it looked brand new. The restaurant itself is awesome, with the view, outside bar and seating...Just struck me as a nice place to hang out and enjoy. I hope it's open midweek after ski season. As for the food, it was very good and hopefully it will continue to be that way. I could just hang out there and drink beer and eat nachos or wings. Seems that it's the nicest restaurant around for miles. Don't know if that's good or bad but I'd like to check it out. So many restaurants start out and then change for the worse though.

Blue Mountain is where I skied all the time when I was young, but I haven't been there in about 20 years! Just got a couple of cheap vouchers, so I'll hit it for night skiing sometime soon.

Glancing at the map, it has greatly changed. Last time I was there, IIRC Challenge was the boundary. Of course, I don't recall restaurants (plural) either, just a dated ski lodge with a lift ticket booth right when you came in, a pro shop, and a cafeteria.

Jersey Skier said:

Dogfish 90 Min on tap.

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That's impressive. You don't see that too often, usually it's Dogfish 60 Minute (which I actually prefer) that's on tap.

BenedictGomez said:

Blue Mountain is where I skied all the time when I was young, but I haven't been there in about 20 years! Just got a couple of cheap vouchers, so I'll hit it for night skiing sometime soon.

Glancing at the map, it has greatly changed. Last time I was there, IIRC Challenge was the boundary. Of course, I don't recall restaurants (plural) either, just a dated ski lodge with a lift ticket booth right when you came in, a pro shop, and a cafeteria.

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The ski lodge looks like it's been updated recently as well. The lockers were all new and used credit cards. The lodge resembles an airplane hangar and it has the usual cafeteria-style food and seating. There are some smaller eating places outside that weren't open and the requisite waffle place that of course wasn't open midweek. They never are open midweek, except at Killington. I can only imagine what that place must be like on weekends.

I was amazed at how many people were there on a Wednesday. They have these nifty ticket scanners that you have to go through every time you get on the lift and would scan the card you were given that you carry in your pocket. They had their main 6 man lift open and a few smaller doubles that were dog-slow..literally the SLOWEST lifts I'd ever been on. Maybe they should've invested the money that they put into the ticket scanners and used it to upgrade their lifts because almost everyone converged on the one main lift and the lines were rather long for midweek. They had several employees out and about constantly directing people to get into certain positions in line. They do it much better at Hunter.

We enjoyed Blue Mountain for a day. They sure are liberal with their labeling of double blacks. Trails which are barely blues at Killington are single and double blacks? My daughter and I were highly amused and spent most of our day alternating between Challenge and Razor. We went on Widowmaker but the lifts over on that side were so slow we went back to the bigger lift even though the line was longer. Sure we could get on the double quicker but it took 3 times as long to get to the top.

There was another large lift on the other side of the mountain which would've reduced traffic had they opened it. Maybe they should've put the guys who were busy directing traffic in the main lift line onto that lift and used it as well, then things would've been more spread out and less crowded. They had a rather interesting way of doing things there.

The conditions were perfect and we had a lot of fun. I liked it better than Camelback because the terrain is much more interesting and the runs are longer and more varied...and the food was MUCH better.

billski said:

Burke, February 2015

$1 for a piece of cheese?

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That does not seem as bad as the $1.00 that all the Waffle Haus places charge to drizzle some chocolate syrup on top of their sugar waffles!