Stowe Intermediate Skiing
Stowe Intermediate Skiing: Great for confident blue trail skiers looking to progress. Despite Stowe’s reputation for fierce expert terrain, 59% of the mountain is rated intermediate and blue skiers will be able to ski from all of Stowe’s lifts. The long intermediate trails on Stowe’s gondola are amongst the longest and best blue slopes in New England.
Spruce Peak Intermediate Skiing
The Spruce Peak Area is home to Stowe’s easier intermediate terrain. The Sunny Spruce and Sensation Quad provide blue skiers with over a dozen options. Only a handful of trails on the Spruce Peak side of the resort are rated expert. The runs off the Sunny Spruce tend to be less challenging than the runs higher up the hill serviced by the Sensation Quad.
From the top, Upper Main Street is the most popular choice. It’s wide and gradually steps its way down a series of relatively steep pitches followed by flatter run outs. The most interesting run is Sterling, which wraps its way around the skier’s left perimeter of the resort.
Mount Mansfield Intermediate Skiing
On the Mansfield side, the gondola is popular with intermediates. Perry Merrill is the longest blue run at the resort and zig zags its way from the top of the gondola with consistent pitch from start to finish. Directly under the gondola is Gondolier – our favorite blue run at Stowe. Gondolier is straight as an arrow and always impeccably groomed. Catch it in first thing in the morning when the corduroy is fresh for some excellent high speed turns.
A run down the Cliff Trail moves skiers from the Gondola over to Mansfield Base Lodge side of this part of the resort. Cliff Trail is notable because it runs through the rugged wilderness between the gondola area and the Forerunner Quad portion of the resort. It’s a beautiful run through an ancient forest (with plenty of places for advanced skiers to pop into the trees).
From the top of the Forerunner Quad the two blue options are Lord and Ridgeview. Lord seems to receive most of the traffic and as a result tends to get skied off fairly early in the day. We prefer taking Ridgeview to Sunrise to access the pod of blue terrain on the looker’s left side of the resort. This area is serviced by the Mountain Triple and is home to about a half dozen named trails which comprise approximately four intermediate runs. All are on the easier end of the intermediate spectrum.
Unfortuntately, many of Stowe’s other blue terrain, notably the bottom halves of many of the Front Four trails, are difficult to access. While’s it’s possible to traverse accross from Lower Nosedive to access some of these blue runs, it’s not a particularly fun run. Much poling is required.