Mount Snow Sunbrook and Sundance Six-Packs: Critical Upgrades for an Increasingly Popular Resort

The Sundance Express is the fourth high-speed chairlift on Mount Snow’s main face.

Background

For the 2022-23 season, Vermont’s Mount Snow saw its biggest suite of investments since the Bluebird Express bubble chair first spun in 2011.

First off, the resort replaced the Sunbrook lift with a detachable quad in the same alignment, finally bringing high-speed lift service to this popular area. Additionally, Mount Snow replaced both its Sundance and Tumbleweed lifts with a high-speed six-pack, adding a fourth high-speed lift on the front side of the resort.

Many have long awaited the Sunbrook replacement, but for those who have frequented the resort, the Sundance upgrade was perhaps a bit more unexpected. Here are our thoughts on the new setup.

The Mount Snow trail map, with the new Sundance lift highlighted in red and the new Sunbrook lift highlighted in orange.

The Experience

Let’s start with the Sunbrook replacement, and in our view, it’s a wholly positive upgrade. The old ride took an especially sluggish nine minutes to lap modestly long blue trails, making it an unpopular alternative to the rest of Mount Snow’s terrain—and, thanks to its exposure, an uncomfortable one on cold days. The new lift takes just four-and-a-half minutes to ride, cutting the ride time down by half and making for a much more enjoyable experience. Sunbrook services the only south-facing terrain at the resort, making for sunnier slopes and a distinct feel versus Mount Snow’s other intermediate runs, and the more inviting lift ride makes the resort a better overall package for guests of this proficiency.

The new Sunbrook lift takes just 4.5 minutes, a 50% ride time reduction from the old chair.

Moving on to the new Sundance six-pack—this lift may come across as just another reliever for Mount Snow’s massively popular main face, but it brings a number of understated benefits. The lift actually sits in a slightly different base area than Mount Snow’s three other frontside detachables, allowing those starting the day at the Sundance base lodge to immediately get on a high-speed lift rather than taking the old Sundance triple or engaging in a lengthy walk over to the other chairs.

The lift’s hidden location also means it doesn’t see quite the same traffic as the other frontside lifts, and the six-pack can often be a way to escape from the crowds on busy days. The Sundance lift only extends about 80% of the way up the mountain, but it provides access to most of the same terrain as its neighbor chairs and offers much more convenient lappable access to the southernmost blues in this area of the resort.

Mount Snow still has its fair share of downsides, including sizable weekend and holiday crowds, fairly ordinary terrain, and a lack of high-speed lift service in its advanced North Face area. But the Sunbrook and Sundance lift upgrades have done quite a bit to enhance the lift and crowd flow experiences on the mountain. While these upgrades aren’t exactly enough to propel Mount Snow above the best southern-central Vermont resorts, but the vast majority of guests—especially those of intermediate proficiency—will benefit from the effects.

The Sundance Six offers some reprieve from Mount Snow’s often crowd-riddled slopes thanks to its hidden location.

Considering a ski trip to Mount Snow this year? Check out our full Vermont ski resort rankings, as well as our comprehensive Mount Snow review from the 2021-22 season (a refreshed 2022-23 review will be out shortly). You can also check out our Mount Snow review in video form below.