SugarBlog

My name is Stephen Lawler. I am a two-time U.S. Paralympian and a seven-time member of the U.S. Paralympic Alpine team. I grew up in Burlington, Vermont, and started skiing at the age of 6 at Sugarbush...

20 years ago Kelly Brush was a freshman at Green Mountain Valley School (GMVS), just down the road from Sugarbush Resort. She trained daily on the slopes of Sugarbush, honing her skills as a top ski racer over the next 4 years of high school. Kelly took the skills and confidence she gained from her time in the Valley and brought them to Middlebury College, where she raced on the Division I NCAA Alpine Ski Team...

I never really played basketball or have been a big fan, but I understand that rebounding is a critical part of the game.  Well this winter it has been an important part of our game plan too here at Sugarbush...

Before we get started, it is snowing again, the mountain looks beautiful and we have another storm coming this weekend. Now, onto this week's Stoke ... One of the things that has kept me in the Mad River Valley and at Sugarbush for so long is the awesome community and our unshakeable optimism, even in the face of tough challenges. Last weekend's warmup/meltdown was one of those problem periods, but it did not dampen our spirits. 

Skiing and riding, live music, tasty eats, local VT beer on tap, events for the kiddos, a torchlight parade, fireworks, and fresh powder - MLK weekend at Sugarbush is set to be a great time. 

Hey guess what, we didn't get cancelled after one episode! This week we talk about the great food options in the Mehuron's plaza, the latest Valley news, an interview with Lori and Alex Klein, and booze running on Front Forch Forum...

If ever there was a good week to use as a microcosm of this season, it may have been this past week. Conditions were unbelievable in the middle of last week -- I mean hey I even made some turns in Slide Brook -- before the weekend saw temps in the upper 50s and various rain showers...

Today, Sugarbush officially became a member of the Alterra Mountain Company family...

The story of this winter has been one of ups and downs. Just when conditions become super, we get a souper soaker, sorry, base consolidation event. We've gotten lucky with the warm-ups though and most of them have been less dramatic than predicted. The rebounds have been strong too, with quick cover replacing the refrozen. This week has been incredible, with lots of powerful squalls filling in the gaps and letting us get to 100% open. 

In recent years, Sugarbush has put an emphasis on your parking experience at both Lincoln Peak and Mt. Ellen.  The result is a paid professional crew, well trained, and ready to make your initial arrival as positive as possible with minimal delay for those first runs...  

If you were connected at all to the happenings at over at Mad River Glen last year, you probably noticed then Marketing Director, Eric Friedman, host his own little public access live TV show. If you were really really connected you would have seen me on it...

Holy Snows, Batman! 2020 is off to a powdery start with 14 inches (so far) coming down...

As we head into this new year, we're feeling grateful for everything that 2019 brought us and excited to start 2020 with a strong push. Looking outside, Mother Nature and our snowmakers have been conspiring to quickly rebound after last week's warmup.  

Happy New Year to all our Sugarbush families! We ended the year with some nice fresh snow and another great torchlight parade and fireworks. Looking back upon 2019, I have many fond memories of the year. We began the winter season with an impressive Snowvember and enjoyed skiing through Cinco de Mayo...

January is National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) Safety Month and Sugarbush has a whole host of great events lined up. Each weekend in January we will be bringing you a new event to highlight what we do here at the mountain to keep people safe.  This year’s events feature our Parks and Patrol teams with lots of fun opportunities to see what those departments do...

It's tough to make rounds in the ski world and not eventually have someone ask you, "How many days did you ski last year?" And oh how I loathe that question. I've always been one to think that it's more about the quality of the days you ski rather than the quantity, though truth be told maybe that's my inner fair-weather skier trying to justify my low day counts...

While the theory hasn't been proven yet, there is evidence that the more words for snow a culture has, the more advanced it is. With this in mind, we've been working on our snowspeak vocabulary.

A wonderful start to Holiday week at Sugarbush! Because of earlier lifts, beautiful weather, and rad people, this week rocked. Nothing better than spending quality mountain time with the people you love...

I hope everyone will enjoy the holidays with your family as much as we are enjoying it with ours.  I mentioned previously that my granddaughter, Viv, was quite upset when she learned we had sold Sugarbush...