Garaventa CTEC Stealth III top drive station.Departure side at the summit.Work chair and upper lift line.Top terminal porch.View down at tower 9.The bottom terminal and steep climb out.Loading area.Partially covered parking rails.Towers 1-2.Another view of the parking structure.View up the lift line.
54 thoughts on “Shooting Star Express – Stratton, VT”
skitheeastMay 3, 2019 / 2:41 pm
This is probably the most controversial lift at Stratton as it indirectly replaced the Kidderbrook Quad. Intrawest wanted to provide one seamless ride from the base of Sun Bowl to the top of the mountain, so they placed Shooting Star here instead of in the old Kidderbrook alignment. When Kidderbrook was inevitably removed a few years later, a number of the mountain’s best trails were left with either a long runoff to the base or a flat cutoff that shortened the run.
The Bear Down and Upper Middlebrook trails always had a significant runout to get to any lift. You always had the option of cutting over where the Shooter trail is to get onto Supertrail or Lower Downeaster instead. Kidderbrook Quad was in my opinion (having never ridden it) a useless out of the way lift that took 15 minutes to ride and only really served 2 trails once Shooting Star was built. After Tamarack is replaced and if they were to add a couple trails to skier’s right of Upper Kidderbrook, I could see a lower capacity high speed quad being installed there.
They built Shooting Star where it is rather than on Kidderbrook because they wanted it to be a quick transfer between the lower and upper lifts. They wanted to prevent people from going to URSA where they have always had long wait times due to how many lifts feed traffic into it. If the upper Sun Bowl lift was on the Kidderbrook route, it would result in higher traffic on Churchill Downs which is pretty narrow, and more people would have ended up on URSA because it would be faster to go there than Kidderbrook. Since this lift is easiest to get to if you took the Sunrise Express, everyone who is continuing to the summit uses it.
This lift is also very overbuilt for the location and there are two reasons for this. One is they wanted parts commonality with the Sunrise Express, and two they wanted to match the capacity so that there would be little to no wait for this lift. It functions essentially as a continuation of the Sunrise Express, rather than a standalone. When I ski Stratton, I use this lift quite often for top to bottom Sun Bowl laps, or even to just take Upper Black Bear or Upper Middlebrook. It’s also an easy way to get to the summit while bypassing the atrocious lines that form at URSA and to even worse extent the gondola.
The runout from Bear Down and Upper Middlebrook to the old Kidderbrook lift via Churchill Downs is a green trail, but it is not flat. The cutoff from both of those trails to Shooting Star via Shooter is a very narrow, flat trail that requires the use of poles or walking altogether. Plus, it makes the trails end very suddenly and unnaturally.
I disagree that Churchill Downs is too narrow to handle the required traffic coming from Sunrise Express, although I do understand the argument that some people would bypass it in favor of going to Ursa. I also disagree that the Kidderbrook pod is too small. Upper Middlebrook, Bear Down, Free Fall, Upper Kidderbrook, a couple of glades, and they had (or have) permits to add cut one or two more trails past Kidderbrook. Plus, if Shooting Star were removed, the existing loading area could be regraded to allow Upper Downeaster to be more easily lapped.
I understand why Shooting Star is the way it is, as Intrawest wanted a one-seat ride from Sun Bowl to the summit and the original plan of a single lift with mid-station/angle-station was more expensive. However, with this in mind, what they should have done was build a single lift from the Sun Bowl base to the summit in addition to Sunrise Express. Eventually, this would have resulted in a full built-out of Sunrise Express as-is, a detachable Kidderbrook, and a base-to-summit Sun Bowl lift in place of Solstice (which itself is rarely used). But, Intrawest was cheap.
At a mountain like Stratton where crowds build, it is best practice to spread people out, and the placement of this lift resulted in the Kidderbrook area being underutilized.
I feel like in such an arrangement, while Sunrise would still be a six pack, this full length Shooting Star would also be a six pack, and I think Kidderbrook would just be a high speed quad.
I wouldn’t be surprised if installing a lift on kidderbrook will be brought up in plans soon because I believe their new strategy is spreading out the skier traffic through equal number of sources of traffic feeding into each lift/pod until the whole mountain is open, so I bet they would want to utilize that pod more. This is why a decent portion of the upper mountain isn’t open because they want sunbowl to be open with enough trails to be caught up with the other pods so it can handle traffic.
Doing such a configuration would actually mean the east face would have a similar lift setup to the west face. On the west face, the gondola runs from bottom to top, American Express serves the lower half, while Ursa and Snow Bowl serve the top half.
The reason this layout doesn’t work in my opinion is because of geography and skier traffic.
Shooting star basically runs on a ridgeline and scoops up lap skiers from a pair of flat traverses on either side of the lift. It’s a bit awkward but it works, mostly due to the quick ride time and short lines. While dropping off the ridge towards Ursa or lower Kidderbrook makes more sense from a skiing perspective, Shooting Star will quickly get you back up to the Summit quickly.
Moving the bottom of Shooting Star to the Sunbowl base would basically be the kiss of death for Shooting Star. The only remotely logical way to ski that top to bottom without walking is to ski Black Bear (notoriously congested from Ursa) to Upper Downeaster (a very steep double black that is often bumped), to either Supertrail or Lower Downeaster (which are both already crowded enough from Sunrise Express). It would fully be a transport lift, with the few people trying to lap it causing major skier flow issues. Any skiers trying to lap it would all crowd onto Black Bear (already safety hazard levels of congestion).
The installation of Kidderbrook HSQ would make skiers from Kidderbrook, Middlebrook and Bear Down simply head to and stay on Kidderbrook. They’d have no reason to return to the Sunbowl base unless Kidderbrook had a bad line (which I don’t see happening much). And the earlier mentioned congestion on Black Bear is a reason that doesn’t work.
There are two minor issues to address, which are the confusing nature of starting both in the Sunbowl base, and the lower/upper divide. With the main base, it’s very obvious where the Gondola goes compared to the other lifts, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist. With two identical chairlifts rising from the Sunbowl base right next to each other, I find it likely that people would often board the wrong one and end up going where they don’t want to. Secondly, often people want to stay up high on the mountain when conditions are poor down low, and Shooting Star is excellent for this, allowing you to lap the top 800 feet. Extending it to the base would add 1,100 vertical and it can get slushy down low.
The Gondola works because it attracts people by being warm, and then has enough places to dump skiers that it doesn’t completely flood the Upper Mountain (although it definitely can come close). A Sunbowl base to summit lift would be very cold and dump hundreds of skiers onto one or two trails that are already over-capacity. It’s not meant to be.
I agree, it’s unfortunate there isn’t a straightforward solution to this, because the sunbowl link to the summit is important, but Kidderbrook (and the undevelopec forest to the skiers right) is the best terrain on the entire mountain, and lapping it is just miserable, especially when sunrise has a long line or shooting star is closed.
A gondola with an angle station and 3600/hr capacity is going to set you back at least 20 million dollars. I bet these two lifts were built for under half that. The separate 6-packs get the job done just as well if not better, and Shooting Star almost never having a line prevents a lot of people from going to URSA.
A lot of people just want to lap the upper mountain terrain and it is more convenient when you can keep your skis on and get right on the lift and ski right off. A gondola would have been overkill.
I think the more practical solution would’ve been a three lift project: with Sunrise as a nonstop six pack from the base to the summit, with Solstice being built as a high speed quad from its current starting location to where Sunrise offloads/Shooting Star begins, and a high speed quad replacing Kidderbrook. This would result in an arrangement similar to the west side of the mountain, where AmEx serves the lower half, Snow Bowl and URSA serve the upper half, and the Gondola provides direct top-to-bottom service.
A six pack for that alignment would be very long. Also these lifts were installed in 2001 so bubbles weren’t a thing in the US yet, and even if they were bubbles would make the lift close constantly on that last 3 tower stretch after passing over Upper Griz because it is always windy there.
Such a lift would be about 7,867 feet long. For comparison to an existing lift, that would mean a lift that’s about the same length as the Independence SuperChair.
7k+ feet is really long for the East Coast. A few 7k HSQs exist here but they’re fairly rare (and get nicknames like “the green mountain freezer”). It gets very cold and windy here compared to CO. A lot of the time I try avoiding chaining Sunrise to Shooting Star because you get *really* cold by the time you get to the top.
There’s no reason to build a nonstop lift from the sunbowl base to the top, because nobody does full top-to-sunbowl laps. The trails just aren’t cut in a way that makes it viable. Most people lap the existing lower pod and use Shooting Star as a connector lift to reach other parts of the mountain. On top of that, there’d likely be confusion in the sunbowl base area with people not knowing which lift to get on.
I think the solution is to:
-High Speed Quad on Kidderbrook
-Move Shooting star to replace both Tamarack and South American
-Move the current South American FGQ to the shooting star line
-HS8 on Ursa or keep the current lift and add a supplementary HSQ
I agree with everything you said except I would not even move the existing South American lift to Shooting Star. It is already in its second location and was built in the 80s, plus it would be redundant with Ursa 8 and Kidderbrook detach. Perhaps keep the tradition alive and sell it to Magic for them to reopen Timber Ridge.
The issue with shooting star going where tamarack is is that they want it to be two sections. An 8 pack on URSA would be a dream. It would improve flow so much better and it won’t do too much with overcrowding since it serves basically whole upper mtn and there are still some trails which can get more people on (Griz, Standard, etc). If they get a hsq for kidderbrook it will definitely help get people to the underutilized trails there and they can make some more trails south of it (Which I believe they own some and there from the Victoria USA ownership). There is no need for a second lift for sunbowl summit, since kidderbrook already will serve all upper sunbowl trails and there wont be enough demand for more upper sunbowl capacity.
Did anyone here ride the Kidderbrook chair when it existed? It was miserable. The ride time would be aided by installing an HSQ but the piercing, constant wind directly in your face once the lift crests the ridge at Free Fall would be as terrible as it was when the lift was there. As a lifelong Stratton skier, I think Shooting Star is one of the best improvements the mountain ever made. The lower Kidderbrook runout only takes 5 minutes. Really not a huge deal.
Also, all the land south of Kidderbrook, past the rope in Test Pilot, is VT state forest. International Paper offered to sell this to Stratton in the 80s but they passed on it for some reason and VT got in instead. The aren’t likely to ever let them develop more trails there unfortunately.
Kidderbrook was similar to the old Snow Bowl lift in terms of wind/cold comfort. When they installed Snow Bowl Express, they kept the lift as low to the ground as possible and altered the alignment to mitigate those problems. The same could be done with a theoretical Kidderbrook Express.
Not for those using the two Six Packs to reach the summit. Once at the summit, yes. Plus, not having to go all the back to the Sun Bowl to find a lift, any lift here would attract people.
I disagree. Kidderbrook would move people from Ursa for the same reason that Snowbowl moves people from Ursa: it’s another good high elevation high-intermediate/expert pod. If it was wind resistant it would surely be helpful on days with the gondola/snowbowl down.
This lift always has some sort of spacing issue right after they start it when its below 15º, and continues for around an hour. They’ve had to close it a few times because it was so bad.
The Kidderbrook quad was the best lift on the mountain during busy weekends in the 1990s. It was not a crowded zoo like the rest of Stratton. Removing Kidderbrook was a bummer because the runout to the Sunbowl base is horrible. The runout makes it difficult to ski the Kidderbrook pod.
They should have extended Shooting Star to just below Freefall/Vertigo Glade. That would allow for a good portion of the Kidderbrook pod to be easily skied.
I agree with both/all your points. Kidderbrook has excellent terrain. But the current long runout makes it a pain. A HDQ where the original was would solve the long cold ride of the fixed grip, make better use of the terrain and lessen the crowds elsewhere.
From what I’ve seen, there’s high demand for a new Kidderbrook chair. I have been to Stratton before but I’m not an expert on it, I believe the two things holding that project back are wind (That area tends to get slammed with crosswinds) and the amount of terrain that it would serve. It’s a possibility in the future but Stratton will likely pursue more mountain biking, a mid-mountain lodge expansion, a Tamarack replacement and possibly an Ursa upgrade along with a summit restaurant before Kidderbrook, again I’m no expert, take my claims with a grain of salt.
There’s a decent amount of demand for Kidderbrook among locals and people who know the mountain pretty well but the lift wouldn’t probably see enough usage to be warranted, unless there was expansion nearby (off the far side of the ridge). Even then, its utility would be minimal all but a few weekends.
I’ve been told Tamarack, hotel to replace liftline lodge, and the Summit Restaurant are next on the list. After that we start getting into long term speculation territory, but I could see a push to reduce congestion in the Ursa line (either add supporting lifts or new terrain elsewhere, ie Kidderbrook).
Going more long term than that, Sunbowl can back up pretty badly on windy days. Either a higher capacity lift there or more wind resistant lift to the summit would be nice. The Gondola is also getting fairly old and is always swamped with lines, so needs something.
Kiderbrook could happen in 10-15 years at the soonest. Any sooner is too optimistic.
Shooting Star has yet to run this season, which is the latest I can ever recall it opening. Before Snow Bowl Express was installed, they focused early snowmaking efforts on Upper Middlebrook and Way Home to get this lift running after Ursa. The new strategy makes sense given that Snow Bowl’s pod is much larger and more diverse in terms of trail variety.
While I appreciate the quick opening of Snowbowl’s pod, I will criticize how Alterra has focused their snowmaking. This is partially due to bad weather luck, but it’s still worth talking about IMO, because a lot of the areas feel “open” but not really.
– Sure, the sunbowl is open, but only through big ben and 91 (which are flat and not good to lap). It’s open as a parking and real estate access lift.
– Ursa is open, but lacks Standard, Grizzly and (importantly) Upper Tamarack. Tamarack is the bread and butter of the pod and it just feels weird for it to still not have opened yet in January. The pod really has three trails open and only two off the very summit, and that’s not enough for a 3,600 pph six pack.
– Snowbowl is fairly open but like Ursa is missing some of its best trails (Slalom Glade/World Cup and Liftline, although liftline has no snowmaking so I’ll give it a pass). Considering the lack of terrain elsewhere and the 2400pph from the quad and 3000pph from the gondola right next door, a very unsafe amount of people gets pumped into Janeway Junction, and Spruce is the same icy mess it always has been.
– American Express and the lower main mountain feels Bizarrely open compared to all of the other areas I just described. I didn’t even know that they blew artificial snow on Spillway, Duck Soup and Old Smoothie. I don’t know who was begging for Craig’s run to get opened, but they sure put in the work for it…
– Kidderbrook and remote areas of the Sunbowl might be on track to be opened by March if we don’t get a nor’easter
So to summarize, Alterra has basically (in my opinion) abandoned the Upper Mountain and high-intermediate/advanced terrain in favor of all of the low elevation beginner/low-intermediate terrain.
They are tying to even out the skier traffic across the different pods and trying to even out the crowds. Thats why a lot of the upper mountain is closed because they are waiting for sun bowl to catch up on open terrain so it can handle more traffic.
My main criticism is that they’ve been blowing snow on a lot of trails people don’t want to actually ski. They’ve put too much focus into the Solstice/Tamarack areas with the idea that people will lap them and ski over to the Six Packs. Instead of opening Big Ben, they could’ve opened Lower Downeaster which people would actually lap.. Or they could’ve gotten a jump on Supertrail to open it before February.. The snow that went onto Daniel Webster/Craig’s Run/Spillway/Duck Soup could’ve gone onto Upper Tamarack or Upper Standard.
I get that they want to have large beginner selections open, but it just ends up feeling like they sold everyone else out to open these flat trails in the middle of nowhere.
They opened Big Ben to have easy access to the sun bowl parking lot, since you can literally ski right to it from the trail. They opened sun bowl with the sole purpose of opening the lot and have the people who payed for ski on ski off condos have access that for now, so it is a bit rushed. They also started making snow on Big Ben and 91 the same day as lower Downeaster, but lower Downeaster requires a larger snow depth to open. They are also focusing on green trails because they can handle approx. 5x as many skiers per acre than a black trail, so yet again, spreading skiers out.
What you’re seeing is a push to get all the lodging trails open ASAP. They may have agreements with the HOAs that they need to open them by a certain time. As for Shooting Star, they have definitely deprioritized the trails around it since Snow Bowl was replaced. Without Upper Downeaster or Upper Middlebrook, I don’t see much of a need for it to run, especially on weekdays when URSA has no line. They’ll probably start running it this coming weekend.
I also don’t understand why everyone keeps criticizing this lift’s route. I think it’s fine. You can take two lifts one after the other and get to the summit. Most trails can be skied directly off either lift, but a few require taking both lifts to lap. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, and it’s certainly better than the slow Kidderbrook Quad or standing in line at URSA.
It is impressive they were able to open the Sun Bowl before Christmas given the high temperatures and icing that occurred the week before. They have wanted to get Lower Downeaster open the past week, and getting that done will finally make Sun Bowl more lappable.
Tamarack and Grizzly are the two I agree it is weird to not have open yet, but I believe this is due to the shift away from opening everything around Ursa first and instead equally dispersing people between Ursa and Snow Bowl. In low snow years like this, Standard will often remain closed until mid-January because it is such a wide trail to cover and its exposure lets more snow blow off the trail altogether.
I agree that their Lower Mountain strategy has been odd. The number of people who use Old Smoothie, East Byrneside, Duck Soup, Spillway, and Daniel’s Webster is relatively low, although I will say that it has allowed me to access untracked trails late in the day. The only unopened trail I would have tried to get open would be Betwixt (Suntanner and Yodeler have been open and closed as temperatures and icing have fluctuated), but otherwise, I agree that it might have made sense to focus on upper mountain trails like Upper Tamarack and Upper Middlebrook. What I will say is that these Lower Mountain trails are all smaller in terms of acreage and therefore need less snow to open, and having high-yield beginners and intermediates have plenty of terrain could be a priority.
Snow Bowl is in pretty good shape for this time of year. Liftline has not received snowmaking since the detachable lift was installed, Switchback requires Standard to open first, and World Cup/Lower Slalom Glade is always a low priority and MLK is typically a more realistic window. Upper Slalom Glade and Janeway Junction have been open and closed as temperatures and icing have fluctuated.
Kidderbrook and the remote areas of the Sun Bowl are always the last to open, sometimes as late as February.
Every mountain has a different minimum snow depth they would like before opening trails. For example, Killington will often open trails with thin cover, add the acreage to their total, put a sign on the top, and call it a day. Stratton prefers to have very good cover before marking a trail as open. Additionally, Stratton is reluctant to blow snow on open trails during the day unless they absolutely have to, so they sometimes have to focus on resurfacing instead of expansion at night. With all of that being said, I think their existing footprint is fine considering the weather. Yes, there have been some oddities, but they seem to be eager to expand as soon as temperatures allow.
Spot on with the last part. Today they opened with all the trails they were making snow on closed, but ended up opening up black bear later on. Also today they were only blowing snow on trails to be resurfaced, instead of new trails (except maybe a few at sunbowl), which has been a common theme this year, but I have to say by doing this the conditions greatly improve.
Certainly agree with all of you that there have been some oddities this year. However, many of the trails you have been talking about (Tamarack, Grizzly, Lower Downeaster, and Betwixt) have had constant snow making the last few days and will likely open in the next few days. Middlebrook and Bear Down are also getting the snow making love and looking like they will open soon. Surprising to me, they were even blowing on Kidderbrook and Supertrail today (1/10). This is really our first great long window for making snow and Stratton is taking full advantage of it and hoping to have a huge expansion for MLK.
They’ve changed course in the last week to start blowing on more advanced terrain and I definitely am a fan. If they open the stuff they’re blowing on now for MLK, the mountain will feel a wholeee lot bigger than it did at New Years.
Were they blowing on Upper Kidderbrook? That trail can take a bunch of skiers away from everywhere else, but it feels a bit too good to be true, and I don’t really expect them to really blow there right now.
Shooting Star wasn’t running today so I couldn’t tell for all of Upper Kidderbrook however the guns were firing on the upper portion of the trail that I could see from Chute / Black Bear.
A lot of people on this thread has mentioned Shooting Star effectively replacing Kidderbrook, and the idea of a lift back over on Kidderbrook. Yes, it caused less people to take Kidderbrook, but the plan since 1997 was to have a buildout of Kidderbrook. In 2003, the mountain obtained a permit to clear and build 220 acres of trails, about 140 of which would have been in the Kidderbrook area. In 2008, AFTER Kidderbrook was taken out, they received a permit to extend the trail clearing timeframe to 2013, since they did not start clearing them at that time since they were busy with Commons II and Treetop. They did end up clearing the trails at Sunbowl but did not get to Kidderbrook and the western flank, probably because Intrawest was still recovering. In 2013 the masterplan renewal map included the outer outline of the southernmost trail that was planned for Kidderbrook in the sector boundary, and a new Kidderbrook lift, which showed it was still planned. The current renewal of the masterplan ends in 2025 and the state will not allow another extension or renewal, and wants an entire new masterplan in 2025, so what happens after that is a mystery regarding this.
I saw that they renewed their 2013 master plan without any major changes in 2020, but I have no idea when this now expires. In their 90s master plan, they got approval for a number of trails south of Kidderbrook. In the 2013 edition, only one was listed. Kidderbrook was in both plans as well as a high-speed quad, but it is more realistic for Kidderbrook to return if there are more trails over there to serve. I asked a friend of mine who works for Stratton about Kidderbrook possibly returning last week and he called it a pipe dream.
I have heard from multiple sources about a build up of the Sunbowl area, post 2025, including more amenities and a decently sized condo development (maybe a hotel?) to try and pull some people away from the main base, especially during the 9-10 morning rush. Perhaps they will add Kidderbrook to this. Also I think for them to create the expansion wouldn’t be too difficult because they already met the environmental quotas for it, and let some trails return to forest to account for the acres that were going to be cut within Bicknell Thrush habitat (Wanderer Shortcut).
They have talked about building up Sun Bowl for years, but it has really gone nowhere. When they discussed creating a mountain bike program, they floated the idea of making the Sun Bowl a summer hub and putting that (and a couple of other activities) over there. They have had permits for three new developments near SMS and along Mountain Road for years, but they have not acted on them and simply renewed them when they are about to expire (similar to Kidderbrook). Renovating/replacing the Sun Bowl Lodge seems to be an actual priority with a concrete plan forward, but anything beyond that has a timeline so far out that it is pretty much up in the air.
I would view money and ROI as a more important factor in Kidderbrook’s return than environmental concerns.
I love the sunbowl but don’t get the appeal of pulling people toward the Sunbowl that way. The lot already fills up on crowded days, and it’s really people’s own fault if they haven’t realized they should park there.
Any accommodations built at the sunbowl aren’t near anything. People like being in/near the village, and this spot is also inferior since sunbowl only operates 3 months a year. Outside of when the lifts are running, the sunbowl is basically a parking lot and empty building in the middle of nowhere that’s only accessible by car. And besides, there’s already plenty of proposed development at the base which could prove to be far more profitable.
The one thing they could build over here would be more ski-in ski-out, but that faces the problems I already mentioned: how many people want a house thats location is just useless “middle of nowhere” for 9-10 months a year?
It sounds like the idea of a Sun Bowl buildup is indeed moving forward, as Matt Jones is really pushing for the mountain to “expand within its borders” to better utilize underused areas. The initial thinking was to do that by expanding the main base with a Tamarack detachable lift, Mid-Mountain Lodge renovation, Founders 2.0 development, and Lot 1 Hotel. Now, all of that has been delayed indefinitely (although Tamarack is still likely for 2026), and a Sun Bowl lodge expansion and hotel/conference center is taking priority.
Unfortunately, I do not think this will bring with it any significant terrain expansion or Kidderbrook lift. The thinking is that all existing Sun Bowl trails need to open more frequently before expansion occurs.
It is silly for the state, any state, to say, no more extensions or renewals. At minimum, anytime there’s a change of ownership, or even leadership, new plans develop, or old ones may be dusted off. I rode the Kidderbrook quad. Yes it could be a cold ride. Any detachable would make the ride more pleasant. A lift would make the trails and glades more useable and spread-out crowds.
Just because it is silly does not mean it will not happen. Vermont is a silly state with many silly laws (and proposed laws) that add a ton of headaches, cost, and overall red tape.
Your point about it being detachable instead of fixed-grip is spot on. The old Snow Bowl lift used to be a cold ride as well, and the new detachable lift has really made it better by being faster and in a better alignment.
Lift Blog 
This is probably the most controversial lift at Stratton as it indirectly replaced the Kidderbrook Quad. Intrawest wanted to provide one seamless ride from the base of Sun Bowl to the top of the mountain, so they placed Shooting Star here instead of in the old Kidderbrook alignment. When Kidderbrook was inevitably removed a few years later, a number of the mountain’s best trails were left with either a long runoff to the base or a flat cutoff that shortened the run.
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The Bear Down and Upper Middlebrook trails always had a significant runout to get to any lift. You always had the option of cutting over where the Shooter trail is to get onto Supertrail or Lower Downeaster instead. Kidderbrook Quad was in my opinion (having never ridden it) a useless out of the way lift that took 15 minutes to ride and only really served 2 trails once Shooting Star was built. After Tamarack is replaced and if they were to add a couple trails to skier’s right of Upper Kidderbrook, I could see a lower capacity high speed quad being installed there.
They built Shooting Star where it is rather than on Kidderbrook because they wanted it to be a quick transfer between the lower and upper lifts. They wanted to prevent people from going to URSA where they have always had long wait times due to how many lifts feed traffic into it. If the upper Sun Bowl lift was on the Kidderbrook route, it would result in higher traffic on Churchill Downs which is pretty narrow, and more people would have ended up on URSA because it would be faster to go there than Kidderbrook. Since this lift is easiest to get to if you took the Sunrise Express, everyone who is continuing to the summit uses it.
This lift is also very overbuilt for the location and there are two reasons for this. One is they wanted parts commonality with the Sunrise Express, and two they wanted to match the capacity so that there would be little to no wait for this lift. It functions essentially as a continuation of the Sunrise Express, rather than a standalone. When I ski Stratton, I use this lift quite often for top to bottom Sun Bowl laps, or even to just take Upper Black Bear or Upper Middlebrook. It’s also an easy way to get to the summit while bypassing the atrocious lines that form at URSA and to even worse extent the gondola.
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The runout from Bear Down and Upper Middlebrook to the old Kidderbrook lift via Churchill Downs is a green trail, but it is not flat. The cutoff from both of those trails to Shooting Star via Shooter is a very narrow, flat trail that requires the use of poles or walking altogether. Plus, it makes the trails end very suddenly and unnaturally.
I disagree that Churchill Downs is too narrow to handle the required traffic coming from Sunrise Express, although I do understand the argument that some people would bypass it in favor of going to Ursa. I also disagree that the Kidderbrook pod is too small. Upper Middlebrook, Bear Down, Free Fall, Upper Kidderbrook, a couple of glades, and they had (or have) permits to add cut one or two more trails past Kidderbrook. Plus, if Shooting Star were removed, the existing loading area could be regraded to allow Upper Downeaster to be more easily lapped.
I understand why Shooting Star is the way it is, as Intrawest wanted a one-seat ride from Sun Bowl to the summit and the original plan of a single lift with mid-station/angle-station was more expensive. However, with this in mind, what they should have done was build a single lift from the Sun Bowl base to the summit in addition to Sunrise Express. Eventually, this would have resulted in a full built-out of Sunrise Express as-is, a detachable Kidderbrook, and a base-to-summit Sun Bowl lift in place of Solstice (which itself is rarely used). But, Intrawest was cheap.
At a mountain like Stratton where crowds build, it is best practice to spread people out, and the placement of this lift resulted in the Kidderbrook area being underutilized.
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I feel like in such an arrangement, while Sunrise would still be a six pack, this full length Shooting Star would also be a six pack, and I think Kidderbrook would just be a high speed quad.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if installing a lift on kidderbrook will be brought up in plans soon because I believe their new strategy is spreading out the skier traffic through equal number of sources of traffic feeding into each lift/pod until the whole mountain is open, so I bet they would want to utilize that pod more. This is why a decent portion of the upper mountain isn’t open because they want sunbowl to be open with enough trails to be caught up with the other pods so it can handle traffic.
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Doing such a configuration would actually mean the east face would have a similar lift setup to the west face. On the west face, the gondola runs from bottom to top, American Express serves the lower half, while Ursa and Snow Bowl serve the top half.
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The reason this layout doesn’t work in my opinion is because of geography and skier traffic.
Shooting star basically runs on a ridgeline and scoops up lap skiers from a pair of flat traverses on either side of the lift. It’s a bit awkward but it works, mostly due to the quick ride time and short lines. While dropping off the ridge towards Ursa or lower Kidderbrook makes more sense from a skiing perspective, Shooting Star will quickly get you back up to the Summit quickly.
Moving the bottom of Shooting Star to the Sunbowl base would basically be the kiss of death for Shooting Star. The only remotely logical way to ski that top to bottom without walking is to ski Black Bear (notoriously congested from Ursa) to Upper Downeaster (a very steep double black that is often bumped), to either Supertrail or Lower Downeaster (which are both already crowded enough from Sunrise Express). It would fully be a transport lift, with the few people trying to lap it causing major skier flow issues. Any skiers trying to lap it would all crowd onto Black Bear (already safety hazard levels of congestion).
The installation of Kidderbrook HSQ would make skiers from Kidderbrook, Middlebrook and Bear Down simply head to and stay on Kidderbrook. They’d have no reason to return to the Sunbowl base unless Kidderbrook had a bad line (which I don’t see happening much). And the earlier mentioned congestion on Black Bear is a reason that doesn’t work.
There are two minor issues to address, which are the confusing nature of starting both in the Sunbowl base, and the lower/upper divide. With the main base, it’s very obvious where the Gondola goes compared to the other lifts, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist. With two identical chairlifts rising from the Sunbowl base right next to each other, I find it likely that people would often board the wrong one and end up going where they don’t want to. Secondly, often people want to stay up high on the mountain when conditions are poor down low, and Shooting Star is excellent for this, allowing you to lap the top 800 feet. Extending it to the base would add 1,100 vertical and it can get slushy down low.
The Gondola works because it attracts people by being warm, and then has enough places to dump skiers that it doesn’t completely flood the Upper Mountain (although it definitely can come close). A Sunbowl base to summit lift would be very cold and dump hundreds of skiers onto one or two trails that are already over-capacity. It’s not meant to be.
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I agree, it’s unfortunate there isn’t a straightforward solution to this, because the sunbowl link to the summit is important, but Kidderbrook (and the undevelopec forest to the skiers right) is the best terrain on the entire mountain, and lapping it is just miserable, especially when sunrise has a long line or shooting star is closed.
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Why didn’t they just do a gondola or something with a midstation?
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A gondola with an angle station and 3600/hr capacity is going to set you back at least 20 million dollars. I bet these two lifts were built for under half that. The separate 6-packs get the job done just as well if not better, and Shooting Star almost never having a line prevents a lot of people from going to URSA.
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A lot of people just want to lap the upper mountain terrain and it is more convenient when you can keep your skis on and get right on the lift and ski right off. A gondola would have been overkill.
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1. Cost
2. Space
3. Convenience
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I think the more practical solution would’ve been a three lift project: with Sunrise as a nonstop six pack from the base to the summit, with Solstice being built as a high speed quad from its current starting location to where Sunrise offloads/Shooting Star begins, and a high speed quad replacing Kidderbrook. This would result in an arrangement similar to the west side of the mountain, where AmEx serves the lower half, Snow Bowl and URSA serve the upper half, and the Gondola provides direct top-to-bottom service.
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A six pack for that alignment would be very long. Also these lifts were installed in 2001 so bubbles weren’t a thing in the US yet, and even if they were bubbles would make the lift close constantly on that last 3 tower stretch after passing over Upper Griz because it is always windy there.
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Bubble lifts were a thing in the US during the 80s and 90s.
https://liftblog.com/yellowstone-club-mt/
https://liftblog.com/vista-bahn-express-16-vail-co/
https://liftblog.com/storm-peak-express-steamboat-co/
https://liftblog.com/sundown-express-steamboat-co/
https://liftblog.com/american-flyer-copper-mountain-co/
https://liftblog.com/big-air-spirit-mountain-mn/
https://liftblog.com/alyeska-ak/
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Such a lift would be about 7,867 feet long. For comparison to an existing lift, that would mean a lift that’s about the same length as the Independence SuperChair.
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7k+ feet is really long for the East Coast. A few 7k HSQs exist here but they’re fairly rare (and get nicknames like “the green mountain freezer”). It gets very cold and windy here compared to CO. A lot of the time I try avoiding chaining Sunrise to Shooting Star because you get *really* cold by the time you get to the top.
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There’s no reason to build a nonstop lift from the sunbowl base to the top, because nobody does full top-to-sunbowl laps. The trails just aren’t cut in a way that makes it viable. Most people lap the existing lower pod and use Shooting Star as a connector lift to reach other parts of the mountain. On top of that, there’d likely be confusion in the sunbowl base area with people not knowing which lift to get on.
I think the solution is to:
-High Speed Quad on Kidderbrook
-Move Shooting star to replace both Tamarack and South American
-Move the current South American FGQ to the shooting star line
-HS8 on Ursa or keep the current lift and add a supplementary HSQ
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I agree with everything you said except I would not even move the existing South American lift to Shooting Star. It is already in its second location and was built in the 80s, plus it would be redundant with Ursa 8 and Kidderbrook detach. Perhaps keep the tradition alive and sell it to Magic for them to reopen Timber Ridge.
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The issue with shooting star going where tamarack is is that they want it to be two sections. An 8 pack on URSA would be a dream. It would improve flow so much better and it won’t do too much with overcrowding since it serves basically whole upper mtn and there are still some trails which can get more people on (Griz, Standard, etc). If they get a hsq for kidderbrook it will definitely help get people to the underutilized trails there and they can make some more trails south of it (Which I believe they own some and there from the Victoria USA ownership). There is no need for a second lift for sunbowl summit, since kidderbrook already will serve all upper sunbowl trails and there wont be enough demand for more upper sunbowl capacity.
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Did anyone here ride the Kidderbrook chair when it existed? It was miserable. The ride time would be aided by installing an HSQ but the piercing, constant wind directly in your face once the lift crests the ridge at Free Fall would be as terrible as it was when the lift was there. As a lifelong Stratton skier, I think Shooting Star is one of the best improvements the mountain ever made. The lower Kidderbrook runout only takes 5 minutes. Really not a huge deal.
Also, all the land south of Kidderbrook, past the rope in Test Pilot, is VT state forest. International Paper offered to sell this to Stratton in the 80s but they passed on it for some reason and VT got in instead. The aren’t likely to ever let them develop more trails there unfortunately.
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Kidderbrook was similar to the old Snow Bowl lift in terms of wind/cold comfort. When they installed Snow Bowl Express, they kept the lift as low to the ground as possible and altered the alignment to mitigate those problems. The same could be done with a theoretical Kidderbrook Express.
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I know that the wind would be blowing downhill on this lift so maybe it could even be a bubble?
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I rode the Kidderbrook FGQ. Yes it was cold. But there is quit a bit of good terrain that would spread crowds if a HSQ was installed.
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It would move people away from Ursa.
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Not for those using the two Six Packs to reach the summit. Once at the summit, yes. Plus, not having to go all the back to the Sun Bowl to find a lift, any lift here would attract people.
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Kidderbrook would not move anyone away from URSA. It would keep some people from returning to the Sun Bowl base.
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I disagree. Kidderbrook would move people from Ursa for the same reason that Snowbowl moves people from Ursa: it’s another good high elevation high-intermediate/expert pod. If it was wind resistant it would surely be helpful on days with the gondola/snowbowl down.
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This lift always has some sort of spacing issue right after they start it when its below 15º, and continues for around an hour. They’ve had to close it a few times because it was so bad.
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The Kidderbrook quad was the best lift on the mountain during busy weekends in the 1990s. It was not a crowded zoo like the rest of Stratton. Removing Kidderbrook was a bummer because the runout to the Sunbowl base is horrible. The runout makes it difficult to ski the Kidderbrook pod.
They should have extended Shooting Star to just below Freefall/Vertigo Glade. That would allow for a good portion of the Kidderbrook pod to be easily skied.
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I agree with both/all your points. Kidderbrook has excellent terrain. But the current long runout makes it a pain. A HDQ where the original was would solve the long cold ride of the fixed grip, make better use of the terrain and lessen the crowds elsewhere.
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From what I’ve seen, there’s high demand for a new Kidderbrook chair. I have been to Stratton before but I’m not an expert on it, I believe the two things holding that project back are wind (That area tends to get slammed with crosswinds) and the amount of terrain that it would serve. It’s a possibility in the future but Stratton will likely pursue more mountain biking, a mid-mountain lodge expansion, a Tamarack replacement and possibly an Ursa upgrade along with a summit restaurant before Kidderbrook, again I’m no expert, take my claims with a grain of salt.
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There’s a decent amount of demand for Kidderbrook among locals and people who know the mountain pretty well but the lift wouldn’t probably see enough usage to be warranted, unless there was expansion nearby (off the far side of the ridge). Even then, its utility would be minimal all but a few weekends.
I’ve been told Tamarack, hotel to replace liftline lodge, and the Summit Restaurant are next on the list. After that we start getting into long term speculation territory, but I could see a push to reduce congestion in the Ursa line (either add supporting lifts or new terrain elsewhere, ie Kidderbrook).
Going more long term than that, Sunbowl can back up pretty badly on windy days. Either a higher capacity lift there or more wind resistant lift to the summit would be nice. The Gondola is also getting fairly old and is always swamped with lines, so needs something.
Kiderbrook could happen in 10-15 years at the soonest. Any sooner is too optimistic.
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Shooting Star has yet to run this season, which is the latest I can ever recall it opening. Before Snow Bowl Express was installed, they focused early snowmaking efforts on Upper Middlebrook and Way Home to get this lift running after Ursa. The new strategy makes sense given that Snow Bowl’s pod is much larger and more diverse in terms of trail variety.
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While I appreciate the quick opening of Snowbowl’s pod, I will criticize how Alterra has focused their snowmaking. This is partially due to bad weather luck, but it’s still worth talking about IMO, because a lot of the areas feel “open” but not really.
– Sure, the sunbowl is open, but only through big ben and 91 (which are flat and not good to lap). It’s open as a parking and real estate access lift.
– Ursa is open, but lacks Standard, Grizzly and (importantly) Upper Tamarack. Tamarack is the bread and butter of the pod and it just feels weird for it to still not have opened yet in January. The pod really has three trails open and only two off the very summit, and that’s not enough for a 3,600 pph six pack.
– Snowbowl is fairly open but like Ursa is missing some of its best trails (Slalom Glade/World Cup and Liftline, although liftline has no snowmaking so I’ll give it a pass). Considering the lack of terrain elsewhere and the 2400pph from the quad and 3000pph from the gondola right next door, a very unsafe amount of people gets pumped into Janeway Junction, and Spruce is the same icy mess it always has been.
– American Express and the lower main mountain feels Bizarrely open compared to all of the other areas I just described. I didn’t even know that they blew artificial snow on Spillway, Duck Soup and Old Smoothie. I don’t know who was begging for Craig’s run to get opened, but they sure put in the work for it…
– Kidderbrook and remote areas of the Sunbowl might be on track to be opened by March if we don’t get a nor’easter
So to summarize, Alterra has basically (in my opinion) abandoned the Upper Mountain and high-intermediate/advanced terrain in favor of all of the low elevation beginner/low-intermediate terrain.
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They are tying to even out the skier traffic across the different pods and trying to even out the crowds. Thats why a lot of the upper mountain is closed because they are waiting for sun bowl to catch up on open terrain so it can handle more traffic.
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My main criticism is that they’ve been blowing snow on a lot of trails people don’t want to actually ski. They’ve put too much focus into the Solstice/Tamarack areas with the idea that people will lap them and ski over to the Six Packs. Instead of opening Big Ben, they could’ve opened Lower Downeaster which people would actually lap.. Or they could’ve gotten a jump on Supertrail to open it before February.. The snow that went onto Daniel Webster/Craig’s Run/Spillway/Duck Soup could’ve gone onto Upper Tamarack or Upper Standard.
I get that they want to have large beginner selections open, but it just ends up feeling like they sold everyone else out to open these flat trails in the middle of nowhere.
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They opened Big Ben to have easy access to the sun bowl parking lot, since you can literally ski right to it from the trail. They opened sun bowl with the sole purpose of opening the lot and have the people who payed for ski on ski off condos have access that for now, so it is a bit rushed. They also started making snow on Big Ben and 91 the same day as lower Downeaster, but lower Downeaster requires a larger snow depth to open. They are also focusing on green trails because they can handle approx. 5x as many skiers per acre than a black trail, so yet again, spreading skiers out.
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What you’re seeing is a push to get all the lodging trails open ASAP. They may have agreements with the HOAs that they need to open them by a certain time. As for Shooting Star, they have definitely deprioritized the trails around it since Snow Bowl was replaced. Without Upper Downeaster or Upper Middlebrook, I don’t see much of a need for it to run, especially on weekdays when URSA has no line. They’ll probably start running it this coming weekend.
I also don’t understand why everyone keeps criticizing this lift’s route. I think it’s fine. You can take two lifts one after the other and get to the summit. Most trails can be skied directly off either lift, but a few require taking both lifts to lap. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, and it’s certainly better than the slow Kidderbrook Quad or standing in line at URSA.
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It is impressive they were able to open the Sun Bowl before Christmas given the high temperatures and icing that occurred the week before. They have wanted to get Lower Downeaster open the past week, and getting that done will finally make Sun Bowl more lappable.
Tamarack and Grizzly are the two I agree it is weird to not have open yet, but I believe this is due to the shift away from opening everything around Ursa first and instead equally dispersing people between Ursa and Snow Bowl. In low snow years like this, Standard will often remain closed until mid-January because it is such a wide trail to cover and its exposure lets more snow blow off the trail altogether.
I agree that their Lower Mountain strategy has been odd. The number of people who use Old Smoothie, East Byrneside, Duck Soup, Spillway, and Daniel’s Webster is relatively low, although I will say that it has allowed me to access untracked trails late in the day. The only unopened trail I would have tried to get open would be Betwixt (Suntanner and Yodeler have been open and closed as temperatures and icing have fluctuated), but otherwise, I agree that it might have made sense to focus on upper mountain trails like Upper Tamarack and Upper Middlebrook. What I will say is that these Lower Mountain trails are all smaller in terms of acreage and therefore need less snow to open, and having high-yield beginners and intermediates have plenty of terrain could be a priority.
Snow Bowl is in pretty good shape for this time of year. Liftline has not received snowmaking since the detachable lift was installed, Switchback requires Standard to open first, and World Cup/Lower Slalom Glade is always a low priority and MLK is typically a more realistic window. Upper Slalom Glade and Janeway Junction have been open and closed as temperatures and icing have fluctuated.
Kidderbrook and the remote areas of the Sun Bowl are always the last to open, sometimes as late as February.
Every mountain has a different minimum snow depth they would like before opening trails. For example, Killington will often open trails with thin cover, add the acreage to their total, put a sign on the top, and call it a day. Stratton prefers to have very good cover before marking a trail as open. Additionally, Stratton is reluctant to blow snow on open trails during the day unless they absolutely have to, so they sometimes have to focus on resurfacing instead of expansion at night. With all of that being said, I think their existing footprint is fine considering the weather. Yes, there have been some oddities, but they seem to be eager to expand as soon as temperatures allow.
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Spot on with the last part. Today they opened with all the trails they were making snow on closed, but ended up opening up black bear later on. Also today they were only blowing snow on trails to be resurfaced, instead of new trails (except maybe a few at sunbowl), which has been a common theme this year, but I have to say by doing this the conditions greatly improve.
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Certainly agree with all of you that there have been some oddities this year. However, many of the trails you have been talking about (Tamarack, Grizzly, Lower Downeaster, and Betwixt) have had constant snow making the last few days and will likely open in the next few days. Middlebrook and Bear Down are also getting the snow making love and looking like they will open soon. Surprising to me, they were even blowing on Kidderbrook and Supertrail today (1/10). This is really our first great long window for making snow and Stratton is taking full advantage of it and hoping to have a huge expansion for MLK.
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*LDE is already open along with Lower Middlebrook
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They’ve changed course in the last week to start blowing on more advanced terrain and I definitely am a fan. If they open the stuff they’re blowing on now for MLK, the mountain will feel a wholeee lot bigger than it did at New Years.
Were they blowing on Upper Kidderbrook? That trail can take a bunch of skiers away from everywhere else, but it feels a bit too good to be true, and I don’t really expect them to really blow there right now.
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Shooting Star wasn’t running today so I couldn’t tell for all of Upper Kidderbrook however the guns were firing on the upper portion of the trail that I could see from Chute / Black Bear.
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A lot of people on this thread has mentioned Shooting Star effectively replacing Kidderbrook, and the idea of a lift back over on Kidderbrook. Yes, it caused less people to take Kidderbrook, but the plan since 1997 was to have a buildout of Kidderbrook. In 2003, the mountain obtained a permit to clear and build 220 acres of trails, about 140 of which would have been in the Kidderbrook area. In 2008, AFTER Kidderbrook was taken out, they received a permit to extend the trail clearing timeframe to 2013, since they did not start clearing them at that time since they were busy with Commons II and Treetop. They did end up clearing the trails at Sunbowl but did not get to Kidderbrook and the western flank, probably because Intrawest was still recovering. In 2013 the masterplan renewal map included the outer outline of the southernmost trail that was planned for Kidderbrook in the sector boundary, and a new Kidderbrook lift, which showed it was still planned. The current renewal of the masterplan ends in 2025 and the state will not allow another extension or renewal, and wants an entire new masterplan in 2025, so what happens after that is a mystery regarding this.
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I saw that they renewed their 2013 master plan without any major changes in 2020, but I have no idea when this now expires. In their 90s master plan, they got approval for a number of trails south of Kidderbrook. In the 2013 edition, only one was listed. Kidderbrook was in both plans as well as a high-speed quad, but it is more realistic for Kidderbrook to return if there are more trails over there to serve. I asked a friend of mine who works for Stratton about Kidderbrook possibly returning last week and he called it a pipe dream.
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I have heard from multiple sources about a build up of the Sunbowl area, post 2025, including more amenities and a decently sized condo development (maybe a hotel?) to try and pull some people away from the main base, especially during the 9-10 morning rush. Perhaps they will add Kidderbrook to this. Also I think for them to create the expansion wouldn’t be too difficult because they already met the environmental quotas for it, and let some trails return to forest to account for the acres that were going to be cut within Bicknell Thrush habitat (Wanderer Shortcut).
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They have talked about building up Sun Bowl for years, but it has really gone nowhere. When they discussed creating a mountain bike program, they floated the idea of making the Sun Bowl a summer hub and putting that (and a couple of other activities) over there. They have had permits for three new developments near SMS and along Mountain Road for years, but they have not acted on them and simply renewed them when they are about to expire (similar to Kidderbrook). Renovating/replacing the Sun Bowl Lodge seems to be an actual priority with a concrete plan forward, but anything beyond that has a timeline so far out that it is pretty much up in the air.
I would view money and ROI as a more important factor in Kidderbrook’s return than environmental concerns.
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I love the sunbowl but don’t get the appeal of pulling people toward the Sunbowl that way. The lot already fills up on crowded days, and it’s really people’s own fault if they haven’t realized they should park there.
Any accommodations built at the sunbowl aren’t near anything. People like being in/near the village, and this spot is also inferior since sunbowl only operates 3 months a year. Outside of when the lifts are running, the sunbowl is basically a parking lot and empty building in the middle of nowhere that’s only accessible by car. And besides, there’s already plenty of proposed development at the base which could prove to be far more profitable.
The one thing they could build over here would be more ski-in ski-out, but that faces the problems I already mentioned: how many people want a house thats location is just useless “middle of nowhere” for 9-10 months a year?
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It sounds like the idea of a Sun Bowl buildup is indeed moving forward, as Matt Jones is really pushing for the mountain to “expand within its borders” to better utilize underused areas. The initial thinking was to do that by expanding the main base with a Tamarack detachable lift, Mid-Mountain Lodge renovation, Founders 2.0 development, and Lot 1 Hotel. Now, all of that has been delayed indefinitely (although Tamarack is still likely for 2026), and a Sun Bowl lodge expansion and hotel/conference center is taking priority.
Unfortunately, I do not think this will bring with it any significant terrain expansion or Kidderbrook lift. The thinking is that all existing Sun Bowl trails need to open more frequently before expansion occurs.
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It is silly for the state, any state, to say, no more extensions or renewals. At minimum, anytime there’s a change of ownership, or even leadership, new plans develop, or old ones may be dusted off. I rode the Kidderbrook quad. Yes it could be a cold ride. Any detachable would make the ride more pleasant. A lift would make the trails and glades more useable and spread-out crowds.
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Just because it is silly does not mean it will not happen. Vermont is a silly state with many silly laws (and proposed laws) that add a ton of headaches, cost, and overall red tape.
Your point about it being detachable instead of fixed-grip is spot on. The old Snow Bowl lift used to be a cold ride as well, and the new detachable lift has really made it better by being faster and in a better alignment.
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This is the third year in a row that Shooting Star has had spacing clutch issues. This time so bad the lift has not run since over 2 weeks ago
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