Though they share a mountain, Smugglers’ Notch and Vail-owned Stowe Mountain Resort couldn’t be more different. Both are renowned in the East for steep skiing and sidecountry access, but while Smugglers’ Notch Resort still features lifts from 1964, Stowe Mountain Resort is the full modern experience—detachable quads, a gondola over the road, high end shops and increasingly infamous traffic.
Despite these differences, northern Vermont skiers awoke on June 1st to discover a secret, six-year-old negotiation with the State of Vermont to build a gondola between two resorts had been revealed following a public records request made by the local News and Citizen. In the following days Smugglers’ Notch Resort president, Bill Stritzler, confirmed the accuracy of the original story in a public statement to the press. While both resorts are cooperating in the planning and feasibility study, Stritzler was clear in an interview with Backcountry Magazine on June 5th that “this is a Smugglers’ driven project.”
The current proposal details a gondola running west of Sterling Pond, an alpine lake that sits at 3000 feet, just behind Smugglers’ Notch Resort’s venerable Sterling Lift. On the Stowe side, the gondola would run from Stowe Mountain Resort’s Sensation Quad on Spruce Peak, which sits across Smuggers’ Notch State Park from Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in the Green Mountain state.
The gondola would likely replace a current hike between the Sterling Lift and Spruce Peak, colloquially known as Snuffy’s, that accesses a large swath of backcountry terrain called the Back Bowls or Birthday Bowls by local skiers. Stritzler says the lift would make that traverse more accessible to a larger variety of skiers and riders, citing “a desire on the part, particularly of the traveling skier, but also the local skiers to have as broad an experience as they can.”
To many locals however, responses like this don’t wash. “To me, this proposal does not pass the ’smell’ test,” said Underhill, Vt. resident Thomas Schriber on a town forum. “First why the confidentiality and secrecy? The plan would call for massive deforestation and destruction of an area not only for hikers but also a local winter skiing paradise. But the main concern I have is who benefits from this deal. Would this deal allow Vail to sell more passes?”
Dave Ward, a former instructor at Stowe Mountain Resort turned Smugglers’ Notch local, has frequented both resorts over the past 25 years and says he worries about increased use and safety concerns if the backcountry terrain became more accessible via lift. “All that stuff is going to be full of people on a powder day in an hour,” Ward hypothesizes. And much of the terrain in Smugglers’ Notch State Park is fall and die sort of fare.
One of the biggest questions Ward has about connecting the two resorts is culture. When he moved to Vermont in 1998 it was for skiing, first at Stowe Mountain Resort before he eventually moved across the mountain to Smugglers’ Notch Resort and the surrounding backcountry terrain. “Smuggs kept that local feeling. Kinda like an old school ski resort, which was much more attractive to me,” Ward says of his reasoning behind switching hills just prior to the Vail purchase of Stowe Mountain Resort in 2017.
Smugglers’ Notch Resort, with Stritzler at the head, has been known as fiercely independent, sticking with low speed, fixed grip doubles over a modernized lift system and refusing to get brought into a multi-resort pass. This has resulted in an increasingly unique lack of crowding, simply due to the slower nature of the lift service. Across the mountain Stowe, both the town and resort, has become borderline overrun with tourists and parking problems following Stowe Mountain Resort’s inclusion on the Epic Pass. The differing values between the Vail-owned Stowe Mountain Resort and independent Smugglers’ Notch Resort are obvious to local skiers. “It [would] take away from the experience tremendously,” Ward says of what he foresaw as Vail spillover if the gondola were completed.
According to Stritzler, the two resorts plan to remain separate regardless of the connector gondola. However, leaked audio via Skiology Weather and News’s Facebook page shows that Vail and Smugglers’ Notch Resort could deepen their partnership as the project develops. Stritzler told a staff meeting, “The future relationship could be anything from a joint effort to make the lift available to guests of both resorts, up to a financial share in the lift, up to a financial interest in Smugglers’, but none of that is on the table today.”
In addition, the proposed route would run through at least one designated natural area inside the Mount Mansfield Protected Area. A Smugglers’ Notch Resort analysis—which details the visual impact of the proposed route from all aspects—suggest the gondola would be visible from portions of Sterling Pond, the top of Mount Mansfield and the Stowe side of Route 108. The same analysis states that if the proposed route were completed, it would shuttle skiers and riders over portions of the Long Trail, Sterling Pond Trail and Elephant’s Head Trail, potentially forcing these historic trails to be rerouted.
Ward is pessimistic about the impacts: “I think that’s pretty awesome wilderness territory that is just going to now have big cables going over it. They’re [also] talking about rerouting the Long Trail which is all kind of a bummer.”
The project does include a mitigation effort, with Smugglers’ Notch Resort offering to gift 72 acres of land to the state—that it convinced the town of Cambridge to sell for $50,000—to be set aside as a protected area which Strizler deems as “really important” to the success of the project. Closing on that land is June 15. Stritzler indicated Stowe Mountain Resort has recently become more invested in the project, saying, “They’re willing to include current Stowe owned land in our mitigation.”
Despite the mitigation proposal, the state deems the environmental impact to a pre-existing natural area as a major obstacle to any progress. Details from a February 20th meeting between the resorts and the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources suggest the state agency, in charge of the final approval, remain unconvinced of the project. Skiology Weather and News has leaked an audio recording of a state board member saying, “This project goes against everything that a natural area is and that they cannot envision proposing an amendment to the LRMP [Long-Range Management Plan] for this type of project.”
After growing up with Smugglers’ Notch in his backyard, Liam McGee is now studying Environmental Science at Westminster College. He spends his spring break testing gear for Backcountry Magazine and his summers working as an editorial assistant.
It seems to me that the Cambridge Selectboard endorsed the sale of the 72 acres in Thunder Basin without doing their homework, or Smuggs knowingly withheld information from the Selectboard during the meeting. Maybe both? According to the minutes from the May 16th Selectboard meeting, Mark Delaney (Smuggs VP) stated that this land could be used as a bargaining chip with the state, but for something much different than a gondola to Vail. If the Selectboard had been aware of SNR’s true intentions, would they have voted differently? Was Smuggs’ being shady or was the Selectboard asleep at the wheel?
Also from the minutes, Cambridge Town Administrator, Jonathan DeLaBruere said that, “we (Cambridge) reached out to Forest, Parks and Recreation to see if they had any interest in the Loomis Road property and they declined and said they will work with Smugglers’ Notch if Smugglers’ Notch puts in an offer for the property, as they have.” Why would the state decline the offer from the town, only to accept the offer from Smuggs?
As a tax payer, I’d like some answers.
Apologies, that information actually came from the minutes of the January 17th and February 21st meetings. Thank you to those who called this to my attention.
Keep the two resorts separate! I have been skiing Smuggs since 1974. We don’t need to hook up with Stowe. Our lift tickets and season passes would go up for sure! Stay a Vermonter’s mountain!
I’m wondering if anyone has been in contact with VT Center for Ecostudies (VCE) about weighing in on the habitat destruction this would cause. VCE studies birds on Mansfield’s summit every Wednesday in the summer. Chris Rimmer (former exec director there) has been collecting that data for the past two decades or so. The Bicknell’s thrush is a vulnerable bird that breeds in the limited montane (spruce-fir alpine) areas of Northern New England and Quebec. They have a declining population. With climate change, as well as human development like this proposal, their range continues to dwindle.
I also want to know if the land Cambridge town is selling to Smuggs was on the market publicly? As someone who lives very close to this area I certainly would have been interested in purchasing and conserving this parcel without it becoming part of a trade to destruct other habitat. I think a number of locals would have had interest in this piece.
Spot on. Make the land sale public. Its also a Peregrine Falcon nesting area.
Having grown up on this side of the notch and loving all of it, this would be incredibly disappointing for this proposal to go through. The environmental impacts and the view that I know and love would disappear forever. Nevermind the stress of more skiers at smuggs. I really feel like the mountain, smugglers management, has not considered every factor. This could potentially mean a large increase in skier visits to a loved resort that doesn’t have to capability to create more space. As well as rescue needs for all of those that continue to try to explore side country with no education about the area, or proper resources if something were to go wrong. I guess money talks! Bs
The idea that this lift would help skiers access the terrain in between the two ends is simply ridiculous. There already are lifts that drop you at the stop of Sterling and Spruce. If you want to access the terrain in between you would still need to hike between them. Only with the gondola you’d have an ugly lift over head. This is a complete BS idea whose only purpose is to make Smuggs a more attractive acquisition property for Vail. No thanks.
Vail is a publicly traded corporation. They need to show growth in profits, so they are always looking for more revenue streams and to put more skiers on the mountain and to increase prices (they charge $6 for a bottle of water at Vail). They degrade the skiing experience to the point where they maximize profits. I doubt I will ever buy an EPIC pass or ever ski at Vail (it used to be Mecca). They missed out on getting what they wanted in Utah so are trying to outflank Aspen Ski Co everywhere they can. The battle between those two behemoths is destroying what is left of ski culture.
This won‘t help Vail make more, but it may save Smuggs. Local areas are always shoestring operations and people being able to stay in Jeff, making a new revenue stream for Smuggs.
Vail has only helped Stowe. Great skiing every day. So lets do something for the locals and let Smuggs be safe.
They build these things with helicopters. I was a kid camping on Mt Mansfield when they built that. It was noisy for a couple of months; very low impact after that.
I‘m for it.
Given that a tractor trailer can’t even get through on the road should be the first indication that a massive construction effort up there would destroy the area. Think of all the large machinery needed to undertake this. Boulders that I have climbed for a decade would be pushed aside. Birch trees older than anyone I know would be splintered. And endangered birds can go f*ck themselves I guess. Not a single smuggs skier or employee want anything to do with this sneaky, back room deal. Time to put Bill in a nursing home.
Dear Angry Local, to the best of my knowledge there aren’t many if any boulders to “climb” along this proposed gondola route unless you know something I don’t. Nonetheless, I appreciate your enthusiasm. This is a very controversial issue, to say the least, but please let’s try to have an honest debate. Smugglers’ Notch Resort and the fact that I was introduced to skiing here, some 40 years ago, undoubtedly changed my life. It’s a special place to many. I have a great deal of respect for Bill Stritzler and I take offense at your comment. Backcountry Magazine and its entire staff are fierce champions of free speech, but let’s keep it civil. Thank you.
Agree on civility. However, doesn’t this seem like Mr. S is looking to cash in (our maybe cash out)? He wouldn’t be the first aging owner to go for the money.
The boulders referenced are in the notch, as is perfectly clear to those who read to understand.
Agreed!
I have to agree that the whole secrecy aspect does not pass the smell test of doing anything good for the community. Rather this has all the markings of money making scheme where the secrecy is needed to prevent any agencies that might slow or block the project from having any input until it’s too late. Yes, as another commenter indicates, this smells like a an attempted set up for a sale probably to Vail.
Smuggs doing Vails bidding here I feel.
Disgusting greed. That is all this comes down to.
Good article, Liam!
You are right Spencer. It is disgusting greed. I live in Taos, New Mexico and we are constantly fighting the “improvements” of the ski area. This expansion seems to be going on at most ski areas. The have no appreciation of the land if it can not bring in more money. Thanks to Liam for making us more aware of Vail Assoc. horrible ways.