Mountain Review: Burke
MOUNTAIN SCORE
CATEGORY BREAKDOWN
See our criteria5
Snow:
6
Resiliency:
2
Size:
3
Terrain Diversity:
4
Challenge:
8
Lifts:
8
Crowd Flow:
6
Facilities:
7
Navigation:
4
Mountain Aesthetic:
GOOD TO KNOW
1-Day Ticket: $80-$104 USD
Pass Affiliation: Indy Pass
On-site Lodging: Yes
Après-ski: Limited
Nearest Cities: Montreal (3 hrs), Boston (3.5 hrs), New York (6 hrs)
Recommended Ability Level:
+ Pros
Low crowds and local feel
Competitive vertical drop for the region
Excellent lift ticket value
– Cons
Lower snow quality than nearby resorts in Northern Vermont
Small size
Slightly ordinary terrain
MOUNTAIN STATS
Lifts: 5
Trails: 53
Beginner: 19%
Intermediate: 55%
Advanced/Expert: 26%
Mountain Review
Looking for a northeast resort off the beaten path that still has a big-mountain experience? Look no further than Northern Vermont’s Burke Mountain Resort. Boasting low crowds, reasonable ticket prices, and a respectable vertical drop, Burke has a number of draws that make the journey worthwhile for a variety of visitors. And with a truly remote feel and a welcoming local atmosphere, Burke is a worthwhile excursion for almost any northeastern skier looking for something new, although not without some notable shortcomings.
Burke is one of the more down-to-earth resorts in Vermont.
Mountain Aesthetic
While not quite offering the stunning vistas offered by certain other locales, Burke is a remarkably isolated mountain, with development really only in lower mountain zones. Certain terrain zones, particularly the East Bowl, offer a degree of isolation rarely matched anywhere else in the northeast. With a few upper mountain trails passing right beneath a gargantuan windmill that almost seems to appear out of the clouds on snowy days, Burke is great at making you feel small in a big world.
Size and Terrain Layout
Advertising 178 skiable acres, Burke is a small resort, but solidly middle of the pack when it comes to independent northeastern resorts. But for its modest acreage, Burke still boasts a sizable 1,988 foot vertical drop, albeit one that takes two lifts to ski top to bottom.
Burke is laid out in two terrain pods stacked directly atop one another, making for an extremely easily navigable footprint that’s hard to get lost in. Every trail in the upper mountain filters back down to the Mid-Burke base area, with access to the lower mountain pod directly from that base. These two terrain pods entirely sequester different ability skiers between them, with all green terrain at Burke existing on the lower mountain and all blue and higher rated trails placed entirely on the upper mountain, with the exception of the lone blue run Enchanted Forest under the Sherburne Express. This layout can leave beginner skiers feeling locked to the lower mountain, but for skiers of advanced proficiency or higher, the upper mountain feels like you can explore in any direction and have a good time.
Burke has a beginner area featuring a covered carpet.
Beginner Terrain
As noted before, all beginner terrain at Burke is located off the Sherburne Express on the lower mountain. In fact, every trail in this terrain zone, with the exception of a few low-angle terrain parks and a single short blue run, is rated as a green run easily navigable by beginners. These green runs are cut extremely wide and see plentiful, high quality grooming operations that make for a delightful, if limited in scale, beginner experience. At the base there is also a sheltered Magic Carpet zone for true beginners to get their first turns in.
However, there are a few major drawbacks to the beginner experience at Burke that may turn away some visitors. Firstly, the area is only served by one chair, the Sherburne Express. While it is a detachable, it is on the older end and takes longer than many modern detachables, making for a slower ride than some other resorts enjoy. It's worth noting however that this chair offers a scenic view of the upper mountain as it traverses across the beginner zone that makes for a pleasant ride. Secondly, contained at the resort’s lowest elevations, this terrain zone is particularly affected by the variable weather that is commonplace across the Northeast. It’s not impossible for it to be snowing on the upper mountain and raining in this lower zone, and with no beginner terrain on the upper mountain this can leave less advanced skiers feeling trapped in bad weather.
Intermediate Terrain
Burke’s intermediate experience is expansive, covering the majority of the front side of the upper mountain. However, it can be easy to mistake one trail for another, with the majority of this terrain taking the same wide-cut, fall line route down the mountain. A few trails take a more winding route, some of which are left ungroomed, but many of these runs have an oddly variable pitch, even becoming completely flat at times, leaving quite a few trails feeling more like access routes to other runs than trails in their own right.
It’s also worth noting that Burke is home to one of the most prestigious ski racing youth teams in the entire Northeast region, producing a surprising number of Olympians for such a remote hill. As a result, the ski team will often have the Warren’s Way trail sectioned off for racing practice, so for completionists looking to ski everything Burke has to offer, that often won’t be possible.
TRAIL MAP
Advanced Terrain
There’s a lot of fun to be had as an advanced skier at Burke. A number of the black diamond rated trails see grooming operations, but maintain a substantial enough pitch to justify the rating regardless. Beyond groomed trails, half a dozen ungroomed single blacks exist across the resort, ranging from short cut-throughs to longer wooded pitches, all of which offer a playground of features for advanced guests to experience.
And when it's open, advanced level guests would be remiss to not try the magnificent East Bowl run. With a vertical drop that covers almost the entire upper mountain zone and a placement acres away from the rest of the resort, entering the East Bowl feels like entering another world. As soon as you skate by the intimidating windmill guarding the top of this isolated trail, you are in for over a thousand feet of ungroomed, heavily featured delight, none of which has a pitch unmanageable for an advanced skier given appropriate snow conditions. If you can handle it, and want to ski one of the most enjoyably remote-feeling runs in the Northeast, this run is worth the trip out to Burke on its own.
Burke offers a few steep, advanced groomed runs.
Expert Terrain
While nothing at Burke can be called truly extreme, particularly in comparison to the hardest runs at other Northern Vermont destinations such as Stowe, Jay, and Smugglers’ Notch, Burke still has a surprisingly expansive experience with a lot to offer to expert skiers and riders. Both flanks of the upper mountain are covered by massive areas of steep, double black wooded terrain. These zones cover a surprisingly large footprint and feature complete isolation from the rest of the resort, lending them a pleasantly remote atmosphere. These zones’ size and pitch keep them loaded with snow on a powder day, giving expert visitors the possibility of dozens of laps without ever skiing the same line twice even within the same zone. The Dixiland zone in particular is surprisingly massive for a resort this modest in acreage. Outside the wooded terrain, Fox’s Folly and the Power Lines offer expert visitors two long, steep leg-burners sure to give skiers of any proficiency a good workout.
Terrain Parks
A few smaller terrain parks exist at Burke on the lower mountain. They are surprisingly long, and with relatively modern features, but because of the low angle of this zone, there is nothing too impressive for park rats at Burke. And because of their lower-mountain location, they are very vulnerable to inclement weather.
Burke offers surprisingly competitive advanced and expert glades for the East Coast.
RECOMMENDED SKIS FOR BURKE
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Recommended all-mountain ski
Recommended carving ski
Recommended glade ski
Recommended expert/touring ski
Snow Quality and Resiliency
With an average of 136 inches of annual snowfall, Burke is well short of the high snow totals seen by the resorts of Northern Vermont an hour to its east. That said, this is still competitive with resorts in Maine, New York, and neighboring Quebec and New Hampshire. With Burke’s remote location and low visitation, when it does see a powder day, it can take far longer to ski out than other resorts with similar snowfall.
As with every other resort in the region, Burke can be subjected to warming spells throughout the core winter season that can make conditions inconsistent and highly irregular year to year. While its northern location mitigates this somewhat, warm weather still does happen and with Burke’s modest snow totals, it’s not unusual for there to be midwinter days that see bare spots on the hill.
Burke’s snowmaking operations are fairly expansive for a resort of its size, with coverage across a large percentage of its beginner and intermediate terrain. That said, with almost all of Burke’s expert experience existing in the woods, experts can find themselves left high and dry when the only snow on the mountain is manmade. That said, with new ownership for the 2025 season promising large scale investments in snowmaking capacity at Burke, it's likely that the mountain’s reliability is going to be getting a boost this winter.
Thin cover and bare spots are a possibility at Burke even during the core season.
Lifts and Crowd Flow
There are two main lifts at Burke that most guests will use. One, the Mid-Burke express, is a high speed detachable quad that flies skiers intermediate and up right to the peak of Burke, gaining over a thousand feet of elevation with a consistent fall line in just a few minutes. The other, the Sherburne Express, takes longer and is mostly traversing, servicing almost exclusively beginner terrain. Despite a lack of redundancies, Burke’s low average crowds mean that both lifts rarely ever see true crowding. Beyond the two main chairs, certain zones are served by surface lifts, but these zones are mostly either for true beginners or, in the case of the upper mountain Poma, to keep the racers separate from the freeskiing crowd.
Navigation
Signage at Burke is plentiful, but the interconnectedness of a few of the upper mountain trails can make finding exactly where you’re going confusing as a first time visitor. That said, the mountain’s vertical layout makes getting truly lost an impossibility, and no matter what you do you’ll eventually filter down to the same base. And with Burke’s relatively small footprint, most guests will have no trouble getting a lay of the land after just a few runs.
RECOMMENDED SNOWBOARDS FOR BURKE
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Recommended intermediate board
Recommended advanced board
Recommended expert board
Recommended touring board
On-Mountain Facilities
Burke’s lodges are nothing truly fancy, but they make up for their lack of upscale amenities with an exceptionally charming local vibe that's both highly practical and very inviting. The brief chat with the staff at the window when you walk up to buy your ticket feels less like customer service, and more like walking into a friendly bar in a mountain town. Everyone there is just happy to be skiing, and part of a great community. Bathroom access is plentiful, and with lodges located at both main bases you’re never far from a rest point.
One of Burke’s bases is located halfway up the mountain, allowing for convenient breaks.
Getting There and Parking
Burke’s remote location means it's not exactly a quick trip from any major metro area, although it’s a comparable trip to other Northern Vermont resorts depending on your start point. Located a bit over 3 hours from Boston, 2.5 hours from Montreal, 2 hours from Burlington, and 6 hours from New York City, you’re in for a substantial drive from anywhere with an airport. That said, Burke is located just off of Route 114, so you’re never required to navigate any difficult mountain passes getting there and weather is rarely an issue for access.
Burke offers free parking at both base areas with easy access directly to the lifts. While these lots are on the smaller side, the mountain’s average crowds mean they are rarely at risk of filling up, even on powder days.
Lodging and Après-Ski
For such a remote mountain, lodging at Burke is surprisingly abundant. Due to circumstances involving the EB-5 Fraud case, there is a massive, recently renovated hotel located slopeside right by the Mid-Burke lodge. This large hotel has the capacity to hold almost all of Burke’s usual visitation if need be, and while not bargain-basement, its prices are downright affordable compared to slopeside options at almost any other resort in the US, particularly those on any multipass product. Beyond the Burke Mountain Hotel, plenty of local inns and Airbnb options at all price ranges exist in the nearby towns of East Burke, Lyndon, and Saint Johnsbury all within 10-30 minutes.
As to be expected in the remote corners of the Northeast, Burke isn’t exactly a party mountain. That said, there are bars in all the nearby towns, each with their own local flavors and down-to-earth vibes for a few drinks after hitting the slopes. Burke is a skier’s mountain, so if you’re looking for an upscale club scene late into the night, you’re in the wrong place, but if you’re looking for a charming atmosphere and good conversation, there’s plenty to be had around Burke.
Burke offers more accommodation options than one might expect for an independent resort of its size.
Verdict
Burke may not offer the snow, the acreage, or the upscale amenities found at many other resorts in the US. But, with a respectable vertical drop, strong terrain for a mountain of its size, abundant affordable lodging, and one of the most unbeatably cheap lift tickets on the market, Burke is a fantastic and frankly underrated option for any group without a megapass product willing to make the drive.
Pricing
Burke has a great value lift ticket rate, with mid-season weekend day tickets only just breaking $100, and massive discounts for numerous groups and circumstances. Burke is also a two-day partner on the Indy Pass.
