ADKskier
Who do you think has the best base area/village. Things like parking, apres, accessibility, shops, restaurants/bars come to mind. While Base areas/villages are a bit different on the East Coast compared to Western and European areas. I feel the skiing usually has taken priority, with few areas having built out. Most of those who do were under the ownership of American Skiing Company and Intrawest. The older I have gotten and having been wounded in Afghanistan I find myself enjoying more and more of the apres lodge experience and village life. I live vicariously on the mountain through my son :D.
A few of my resort favorites:
Stratton- Expansive village with shops and restaurants
Tremblant- The Premier Ski village
Windham Mountain- 9 on-mountain restaurants/bars large base area with ski-in-out accommodation.
Holiday Valley- 5 different base lodges, and lodging with restaurants. Everything can be accessed by skiing no village feel
though.
Remski
First thanks for your service and sacrifice!
My pick is Tremblant. Great pedestrian village with everything you could want on a day that your taking a rest from being out on the mountain.
lotsoskiing
I would agree with Tremblant. Stratton seems hodge-podge; Tremblant actually feels like
a village. Have not been to the others.
On a smaller scale, Sugarloaf is not too far off, but low on variety.
rickbolger
Thanks for your service and your post. Makes me look at these "villages" in a much more positive light!
Intrawest built the one at Stratton and Tremblant, and probably Snowshoe? They tried to build one at Mountain Creek but that was ill-conceived from the start.
While these ersatz villages have their detractors (usually me ;) ) if I look at them through this lens, I have to say Stratton does it better than any I've encountered in the eastern US. (Haven't been to Tremblant or Snowshoe)
Sugarloaf has a lot of that stuff, but it seems kind of far flung to me to be in the same league as Stratton's village. Sunday River is similar, but again, you need a shuttle to get here and there.
Sugarbush, Mount Snow, Jackson Gore, Windham as you mentioned, Stowe, all have shops and activities and stuff but not as clean and concise as Stratton. Most of those just have things shoehorned wherever they fit, or stuffed into a hotel somewhere.
Bretton Woods has a terrific sprawling base lodge with most of that stuff, shops, plus a mini satellite of the New England ski museum, a welcome shelter with a fire pit, a climbing center and who knows what else, but it's not a village
Loon has all kinds of stuff, plus a steam train from one lodge to the other, so that's deserving some mention
Are we including southern resorts? Wintergreen has a lot of things going on, and for variety, hillbilly claptrap and on-mountain honkytonk you absolutely can't beat Ober Gatlinburg. Ever.
JimK
Haven't been to Tremblant, but from reputation it sounds like the leader in the East for the thing you are looking for. One that hasn't been mentioned so far that also has a bit of a village at/near the base is Mont Sainte Anne.
Possibly my favorite base village (and town) in the West is Breckenridge. I find it less stuffy and slightly less expensive than many other base villages/towns in the west. It's also quite walkable except for the fact that it's elev 9600', which can be tough on visitors from the flatlands.
Bkroon9175
Tremblant gets my vote. I go there for a week and never need to move my car.
joshua_segal
How about North Conway where Cranmore is in the middle of the town?
And Killington - between buses and taxis, has pretty much everything on the access road.
Remski
joshua_segal;c-50533 wroteHow about North Conway where Cranmore is in the middle of the town?
And Killington - between buses and taxis, has pretty much everything on the access road.
Well those come under ski towns not base villages as the title of this thread is all about.
newpylong
Yah neither applicable. Thread pertains to a base village attached to the hip with the mountain.
JimK
Rick mentioned Snowshoe and I failed to pick up on it. Snowshoe does have a true slopeside village that is fairly sizeable. Also, quite memorable/scenic because it's set at an elevation of almost 5000'. The skiing is quite good for that part of the country, but not equivalent to Tremblant or Breckenridge, although lodging costs are equivalent.
xlr8r
Tremblant has to be the best in the east, but I have never been there.
Stratton is nice, but the vibe and architecture is too pretentious. Interestingly the main pedestrian village was built before Intrawest owned Stratton, Intrawest added the luxury condos across the street from the main village. I might not like the vibe, but it is really nice to use the village when skiing at Stratton. I like having lunch in the village instead of dealing with the base lodge there, and the Green Door pub is fun.
Stowe is the newest, a bit pretentious like Stratton, but I like the architecture a lot more. But it lacks a good large apres bar.
Jiminy, Okemo, and Sugarbush all have what I would consider small villages. But none of them really offer much more than 2-3 restaurants, a ski shop, and real estate.
Killington, Mount Snow, Sunday River, all missed out on building base villages. One of Les Otten's stupid decisions as to build the Grand Summits away from the base areas instead of using the Grand Summits to transform existing outdated base areas into villages.
ADKskier
joshua_segal;c-50533 wroteHow about North Conway where Cranmore is in the middle of the town?
And Killington - between buses and taxis, has pretty much everything on the access road.
I actually stayed in North Conway when I skied at Bretton Woods about 18 years ago. It was a great ski town. I'm looking for things right at the mountain, but you are free to post whatever you feel is relevant. I agree. North Conway is up there as a ski town.
You know I have never been to Jay Peak, but they look like they have quite the base area now.
ciscokid
19 years back I recommended Whistler/ Blackcomb for my daughter’s honeymoon as they were under 25 and couldn’t rent a car. They enjoyed everything in the village’s
ski_it
xlr8r;c-50539 wrote
Killington, Mount Snow, Sunday River, all missed out on building base villages. One of Les Otten's stupid decisions as to build the Grand Summits away from the base areas instead of using the Grand Summits to transform existing outdated base areas into villages.
Mt Snow's Grand Summit is at the base. You could ski right into the pool. Not much of a base village though. So is Hunter's version, though no real village. Attitash's is kinda sorta at one of the bases but no village.
newpylong
Yeah I actually think the majority are exactly where you would want to build a village if you ever did. He built them as close to the base as they could where they owned the land. Killington, Sugarloaf's, and Mount Snow's are right there. The River built two, Jordan's is where you would want one over there. The current Grand (at White Cap) probably not ideal. Attitash's is out of the way, but they don't own enough land at the Attitash proper to do anything else and Bear was the rage at the time.
Otten may have done a lot of dumb things but I wouldn't rank hotel placement up there.
xlr8r
Sugarloaf was not built by ASC so I left that one out. Mount Snow and Killington are located at the base which is good, but they were built like they were just dropped there next to the existing base. Little was done to improve the existing base areas. What we got was fancy new hotels next to outdated base lodges
The two at Sunday River, and Attitash are all physically separate from base areas, (I admit Attitash Grand is just a few hundred feet from Bear Peak base). This means that for things like rentals, and ski school, guests at the hotel have to get in a car, take a bus, or walk up and down ski trails to get between the hotel and base lodge. Not a big deal for most people on this forum, but it is not ideal for beginners on a ski vacation. Sunday River in particular, the hotels are poorly located for any guests looking to use ski school.
ceo
xlr8r;c-50549 wroteSugarloaf was not built by ASC so I left that one out.
I'm 90% certain that was is now the Sugarloaf Mountain Hotel was originally the Grand Summit Hotel, built by ASC when they owned Sugarloaf.
newpylong
xlr8r;c-50549 wroteSugarloaf was not built by ASC so I left that one out.
Yes it was or I wouldn't have listed it.
If one can find the newspaper stories from the era I think you will find that the locations were purposefully chosen, with chiefly the Killington and Mount Snow units planned to be the nucleus of what they called an "Alpine village" at the time. Obviously that never happened.
xlr8r
The Sugarloaf Hotel was built in the 80s long before Killington and subsequently ASC owned the mountain in the 90s. ASC renamed it the Grand Summit, and Boyne changed the name back to Sugarloaf Hotel
newpylong
Did they perform an addition and/or major refurbishment in the 95-98 time frame perhaps? We used to go there there Super G camp and I remember it being torn apart. I ASSumed they were building it but I guess not. Thanks for the correction!
