Smugglers Notch & Stowe - MLK weekend 2026...

[Tonyr]

Resort or Ski Area

Smugglers Notch

Date

Jan 17, 2026

Snow Conditions

1. Powder

We first visited Smuggs two years ago in the summer when we hiked up to Sterling Pond and since that day I have always wanted to come back and ski here too.

We lucked out today with an ankle deep powder day and holy cow, what a world class place this is to ski in the trees. I've said it before and I'll say it again, when the snow is good, there is no better place to ski tight technical trees then North Vermont, it's the best.







We skied from 9 am to 1 pm then headed over to Stowe to meet up with family. While we got 4 solid hours of skiing in, the lines were a good 20 minutes each ride and with the lifts being slow, we didn't get to ski here nearly as much as we would have liked.

With that being said I did get a chance to ski Upper Liftline, Upper FIS, the trees to the right and left of Free fall, the trees to the right of FIS, the Black Hole, and the Birthday Bowls. We definitely want to come back here again on a less busy weekend. Tomorrow we are skiing Stowe with family, it lightly snowed all day today so we are in for another amazing day tomorrow!

 

[Tonyr]

I'll add for anyone looking to ski the Black Hole which is Smuggs triple black diamond run, there is one section pretty much unskiable then the rest of the run is a ton of fun through the trees. The entrance is right off the bottom part of Upper Liftline, it's hard to notice and the trees are very tight at the top part of the run until you hit the unskiable chute section.



There are really two ways to drop into the ridiculous, iced up chute. You can drop in on the skiers left which you'll need to go down to your butt and slide through or you can go down the skiers right. That part of the chute has a branch midway in blocking your path but don't let that discourage you. If you cross back over to the left side of the chute at the downed branch you can get through this part home free. I was able to get all the way down upright on my skis. I do not recommend dropping in on the left side though, it's pretty much next to impossible to stay upright!

 

[Tonyr]

Lastly, we were not super impressed with the Birthday bowls, they were skied out and lots of areas back in there can be trouble. You really need to follow the tracks infront of you. Also you need to know where to turn into the bowls once you go out of bounds, it is very easy to miss the turn.

Sterling Pond frozen on our way to the bowls...

On a side note, this is how Sterling Pond looks in the summer. It's one of the best hikes in Vermont...

I'll say that we much preferred the trees off FIS and Freefall to the bowls. I wouldn't be in a rush to go back in here again...

The skating back on the notch road was pretty easy. We were at parking lot 1 in less then 10 minutes and most of the skating was downhill. As I said though, we preferred the inbounds unmarked stuff off of Madonna over this.

 

[Tonyr]

Sunday at Stowe was pretty good as we picked up another 3 inches overnight. Skied with family from 9 am until 2pm and showed them around the mountain, it was great to be back here again.

Lift lines were around 15 minute waits each ride and we got a chance to ski the Kitchen Wall, Hazelton trail, Bypass, Nosedive Glades, Goat Woods, Pipeline, Upper Starr, Lookout, and the Lookout Glades which were all the highlight runs of the day.

On a side note, my step brother's son is a ripper, he's 7 years old and has already skied all of the double blacks here plus some of the crazy off the map stuff I took him on today. He got down all of it like a champ! Here are some photos from the day...









Tomorrow is our last day, my legs are cooked but we will get a few more hours in on Monday morning before we head home.

 

[urungus]

Great report and killer photos as usual @Tonyr - conditions look great

 

[Tonyr]

Thanks! Conditions I say were an 8 out of 10 this weekend. Much better then our Colorado trip in December.

 

[Tonyr]

We got out early today and hit the FourRunner Quad at 8 am, skied until 11 am, then called it a MLK weekend.

Our first run of the morning was the National Drop-In Glades which is sidecountry and we entered this run on the wrong side. Dropping in, the trees, and snow were spectacular....


In the picture below, you can see the FourRunner Quad in the background through the trees. We soon realized there was no way out of these trees except over a frozen waterfall.

My son and I had to pop our skis off and hike back up the thick sidcountry glades over to the actual National Drop-In run to make it the rest of the way down....

This unmarked run is meant to be entered on the right side of National Drop-In, we unfortunately entered it on the skiers left which is 100% not recommended!

From there we skied the Goat Woods, Partridge, the Bypass Glades, Nosedive Glades, and finished up with Upper Liftline and National to close out the weekend. Here are some photos from those runs...





Conditions were pretty solid today in the woods, the main trails were firm and a little icy. Definitely the worst of the 3 days conditions wise over the holiday weekend but still really good. Also the lines this Monday morning were non existent.

As I mentioned earlier, our last run of the day started on Upper Liftline, which interestingly enough, was the only run I hadn't skied at Stowe. It's rarely open when I've been up here and was told that once the snow levels get too high the run has to stay closed since it's right under the lift. You can see why in this photo...

In any event, I hope everyone had a great MLK weekend and you enjoyed this report!