Yeah, the car schlep is no joke with a large group. When I go on day trips alone with the two younger kids I have a very deliberate car pack and can do it with little stress in my Prius (all our skis are short enough that they can ride in the passenger seat, and each kid has a welcome mat to throw on the parking lot ground so they can suit up/boot up comfortably at the car even without a trunk that doubles as a changing room lol). But when all six or even five of us go we take our minivan and have to stow skis in the roof rack even for short drives etc and it's just like NO.
I did see that Smuggs was acquired/whatever by Bear Den!
The deal was actually announced while we were at Smuggs this year! Or maybe right before, I can’t remember. But when we were there, a couple of the ski school instructors asked us about our experiences at Catamount because they heard that we ski there a lot – just sussing out how things might be under that management, I guess. I’m excited to see what happens with it. I’m a fan of both Catamount and Berkshire East – I’m never really am aware of a management-type decision that I don’t agree with, and I like the continued focus on a local, independent-slope kind of experience. It feels like how skiing used to feel when I was a kid, which is a feeling I like (and I grew up skiing at Smuggs, so that bodes well, lol).
Typically we go to Smuggs in the last week of February. Some years we’ve skewed into the first week of March and every single time so far, that week has brought a major warm spell with rain lol – some years it gets colder after that and skis great again for weeks beyond (like this year) but when we are only there for that week, that doesn't help lol. So we have found that late February is our sweet spot for getting solid conditions while missing the school-break holiday rates.
Some years (like this year) it does put us on schedule with Vermont’s school break week but we’ve never had any crowding or higher rates due to that. I actually love being there on the VT holiday week because the ski schools tend to either be empty (as a non-break week for most places) or else full of local kids/employees' kids who know/ski the whole mountain. My 11-year old just wants to SKI HARD all day long – I put him in private lessons for one or two days, so he has a dedicated instructor to take him up on the double/triple blacks regardless of who’s in the group lessons, but otherwise he does the ski school on the other days; whereas my 8-year old just wants to spend all day zipping through glades in a pack of feral creatures like himself and is not really super concerned with checking off bucket-list items. Both of them are usually thrilled in the ski camps on the "local break" week!
(Extra lucky experiences: This year my kids had the ski school all to themselves, as a pair together, one of the days and the absolutely fantastic instructor ended up taking them all over all the unmarked glades (except two – he told them he would not show them those ones yet because of how high-risk they are so of course now those are my 11-year old’s goal for next year). My 11-year old also was the ONLY kid in ski school one day and lived his absolute dream day; the instructor even called in a second teacher to make a group of 3 for a while, and they boot-packed up to Sterling Pond together and then skied through the woods back down to the slopes and my kid was absolutely over the moon. He basically had an all-day private lesson and I tried to tip the instructor enough to show my gratitude but I'm not sure any amount would actually convey it. Really just above and beyond levels of stoke and effort and attention from every instructor, every single day. Also, on the day it was just the two of them, their instructor at one point invited the resort photographer to join them on a run and they gave me some KICKASS pictures of my kids looking totally awesome!)
Long story short, we always feel like the end of February is when the mountain has the best chance of being fully open, rates are lower, and usually no crowds at all on M-Th. The downside of going on a "non holiday week" is that some restaurants may not be open Monday/Tuesday. That happened to us once a couple years ago and took us by surprise. The biggest "how much of the mountain is open?" risk we encounter at that time of year is usually wind holds, but I guess one upside of the slow double-chair lifts is they can usually withstand greater winds than detachable ones can.
We are pretty simple overall - we ski from first chair to last, have a large snack after we regroup from last run (the Ben & Jerry's at the base of the village lift is literally a line item in our vacation budget each year lol), walk to the pool/hot tub for an hour or so, and then head home for dinner before crashing in bed. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes I read about people booking trips at Stowe and needing to make dinner reservations at restaurants ahead of time etc and I nearly break out in hives from the anxiety just thinking about it lol. I need a family vacation where we can be a little flexible. At Smuggs my 16-year old stepson (who does love skiing but is less ride-or-die than the younger guys) can go inside early in crummier weather, or can wake up late and head out when he feels like it if he stayed up completing a remote homework assignement, etc; or I can stay at the pool with the younger kids while my husband leaves earlier to start dinner, or whatever. Being able to basically ditch the car as soon as we unpack our gear is a huge quality-of-vacation factor for us.
You mention a good possibility - just staying on-resort at Jay/Owl's Head/etc versus staying offsite and central to all three. I don't know why that didn't occur to me! I guess I innately think of it as a "unpack the car and settle in for the week" vacation but it doesn't have to be!
