Stowe is located at the foot of Mount Mansfield, the highest mountain in Vermont. Skiers have been coming since the 1930s, and the town has been called the Ski Capital of the East for almost as long. The title leaves out everything else: the white steeple above Main Street, the galleries and sugarhouses, the swimming holes, and a food and beer scene that outruns towns ten times its size.
The Grey Fox sits on Mountain Road, about a mile from the village in one direction, the mountain in the other. Seven and a half acres of lawn run down to the West Branch of the Little River, with Mansfield on the horizon.
The Stowe Recreation Path, the 5.3-mile greenway that links the village to the mountain corridor, crosses the back lawn. From the hotel you can walk or bike to dinner, to the village, or just along the river. What follows is the Stowe we know best, and how to spend the days around your stay.
Summer in Stowe is lived outside. The Rec Path fills with bikes, the swimming holes fill with people who know where to look, and the gondola and the Auto Toll Road carry the unhurried to the top of Mansfield. Paddleboards go out on the Waterbury Reservoir, golf plays out across the road from the hotel, and the farmers’ market takes over Sunday mornings. Evenings are long, and the lawn and the outdoor pool are built for them.
Stowe in foliage season may be the most photographed small town in America, and it earns it. The maples turn through late September and early October, the drive through Smugglers’ Notch becomes a tunnel of color, and the Rec Path out the back door is as good a leaf walk as any in New England. Come midweek if you can; the color doesn’t know what day it is.
Winter is the season the town was built on. Mansfield’s trails have drawn skiers for ninety years, the cross-country network at Trapp Family Lodge was the first of its kind in the country, and when the Notch road closes under snow it becomes a walking route into the mountains. Days are spent on the hill. The hotel is built for the hours after: an indoor pool, a hot tub, a sauna, and the village down the road for dinner.
The Rec Path is the town’s best idea: 5.3 paved miles winding from the white steeple in the village toward the base of the mountains, crossing the West Branch of the Little River on arched bridges as it goes. It’s how Stowe moves when it isn’t driving, bikes and strollers in summer, leaf walkers in October, snowshoes and fat bikes once the snow holds.
It crosses our back lawn, with a footbridge connecting it to the property. Walk out the door, cross the bridge, and turn either way: the village is about twenty minutes on foot, and dinner is closer, with The Bench and Doc Ponds both sitting right along the path. No trailhead, no parking lot, no plan required.
Across the back lawn, over the footbridge.
Mount Mansfield is the roof of Vermont, 4,393 feet at the Chin, with a summit ridge that locals read as a face in profile. Skiing here goes back to the 1930s, when the first trails were cut by the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the mountain made Stowe’s name. Today Stowe Mountain Resort spreads across Mansfield and Spruce Peak with over a hundred trails, from long cruisers to the Front Four, the steep quartet that built the mountain’s reputation.
The mountain works in every season. In summer and fall the gondola runs for the view, and the Auto Toll Road, a historic 4.5-mile drive dating to the carriage days, climbs nearly to the ridgeline, where the Long Trail runs along the top of the state. In winter, the shuttle up Mountain Road means the car can stay parked at the hotel.
Stowe Mountain Resort, 5781 Mountain Road. About fifteen minutes by car.
Past the resort, Mountain Road narrows, bends, and threads through a gap in the mountains under thousand-foot cliffs. Smugglers’ Notch took its name from the contraband that moved through it after the Embargo of 1807, and the road through it, single lane in places and hemmed in by house-sized boulders, is one of the most dramatic drives in the East. Pull-offs lead to Bingham Falls, to the climb up to Sterling Pond, and to caves that hold ice into summer.
The Notch is seasonal: the road closes with the first serious snow and stays closed into spring, which is its own invitation. In winter it belongs to snowshoers and backcountry skiers. In fall, it is the single best stretch of foliage driving in Vermont.
Route 108 North, past Stowe Mountain Resort. About twenty minutes by car; closed in winter.
And would go ourselves.
990 Mountain Road, at the hotel.
The chef-owned kitchen at the front of the Main Inn, serving the hotel: breakfast steps from your room, and a wood-paneled bar for the end of the day. Brunch runs Saturday through Tuesday, 9 to 1.
492 Mountain Road. About a ten-minute walk down the Rec Path.
Wood-fired comfort food, pizzas, rotisserie, and hearty plates in a room full of ski-town ease, with twenty-plus Vermont craft beers on tap. A perennial local favorite for casual dinner, and close enough that nobody has to drive.
294 Mountain Road. About a fifteen-minute walk, or two minutes by car.
The casual sibling of Waterbury’s celebrated Hen of the Wood: an eat-and-drink spot with a deep tap list, records on the shelves, and what locals vote the best burger and fries in the valley, year after year.
25 Main Street, in the village.
A warm, low-lit American bistro below street level on Main Street, the restaurant Stowe locals keep voting their best. Book ahead; the bar is the move if you didn’t.
1899 Mountain Road. A few minutes by car.
Pizza, pasta, and a lounge that fills on powder days. Family-friendly, group-friendly, and reliably good: the town’s default answer to “where can we all agree on?”
311 Mountain Road. About a fifteen-minute walk.
Bike shop up front, taproom and kitchen in back: tacos, bowls, and local drafts at the foot of the Cady Hill trails. Ride, eat, repeat.
14 South Main Street, Waterbury. About twenty minutes by car.
The valley’s destination restaurant, wood-fired, farm-driven, and widely considered among the best tables in Vermont, now in its contemporary home on Main Street after seventeen years in the old grist mill. Worth the drive and the reservation; its barbecue-minded neighbor Prohibition Pig is the walk-in alternative.
92 Stowe Street, Waterbury. About twenty minutes by car.
From the Hen of the Wood family, in the historic grist mill the original Hen called home: fresh pasta made by hand, a short menu, and a room of old beams over the brook. The reservation locals are chasing right now.
1 South Main Street, in the village. About a twenty-minute walk on the Rec Path, or three minutes by car.
A century of Vermont skiing, the 10th Mountain Division, the first lifts, the racers, kept in the old town hall. The right first stop for understanding why this town looks the way it does.
122 Hourglass Drive, at the resort. About fifteen minutes by car.
A 420-seat hall at the base of Spruce Peak with a year-round calendar of music, theater, and film. Check the schedule; a show here after a day outside is a Stowe move.
90 Pond Street, in the village. About a twenty-minute walk or three minutes by car.
Stowe’s center for contemporary art, with rotating exhibitions and free admission. Small, serious, and a good rainy-hour stop.
17 Town Farm Lane. A few minutes’ walk from the hotel.
Contemporary painting and sculpture in a converted mill building practically next door, with an outdoor sculpture park along the river. The closest culture to your room by a wide margin.
Mountain Road. Sundays, mid-May through mid-October. A few minutes by car.
Produce, cheese, maple, bread, and prepared food from the hills around town, with live music most weeks. Go hungry.
1281 Waterbury-Stowe Road, Waterbury. About fifteen minutes by car.
The mothership. Thirty-minute tours, a scoop shop, and the Flavor Graveyard, where retired flavors rest under real headstones. The best rainy-day insurance in the county.
3600 Waterbury-Stowe Road, Waterbury Center. About ten minutes by car.
A working cider mill pressing since the 1970s. The cider donuts are the standard against which all others are measured; the drive back up Route 100 is half the point in foliage season.
Percy Farm, Route 100. About five minutes by car.
A proper corn maze on a working dairy farm, open late summer through foliage. Low-tech and better for it.
Through the back lawn.
The 5.3-mile paved greenway that links Stowe Village to the mountain corridor, crossing the West Branch on arched bridges as it goes. It crosses our back lawn, with a footbridge connecting it to the property: walk out the door and turn either direction. Bike it, run it, walk it to dinner; in winter, it’s a snowshoe and fat-bike route.
Trailhead on Mountain Road. Less than a mile from the hotel.
Stowe’s flagship mountain-bike network, about eleven miles of flowy, hand-built singletrack in a 320-acre town forest, with trails for walkers too. Riders come from all over New England for this; you can pedal to it.
Off Route 108, past the resort. About fifteen minutes by car.
A short, steep walk down to a gorge where the West Branch drops through carved rock into a cold green pool. The most rewarding half-mile in Stowe.
Off Route 100 North. About ten minutes by car.
One of Vermont’s tallest waterfalls at the end of an easy walk. Quieter than Bingham, and best after rain.
Trailhead on Upper Hollow Road. About ten minutes by car.
The town’s favorite short hike: about 2.8 miles round trip, steadily up, to a bald summit with the whole valley and the Mansfield ridgeline laid out in front of you. Go early for sunrise.
Trailhead at the top of Smugglers’ Notch. About twenty minutes by car, seasonally.
A climb of about a mile from the Notch to the highest trout pond in Vermont, held in a bowl of spruce at 3,000 feet. Cold, clear, and worth every step.
Waterbury Center State Park. About fifteen minutes by car.
850 acres of flat water ringed by green hills, the valley’s paddling spot. Rentals and a swimming beach at the state park; outfitters in town run guided trips.
744 Cape Cod Road. Minutes from the door; the course borders Mountain Road just below the hotel.
Eighteen holes under the Mansfield skyline, a few hundred yards from your room. The view from the fairways alone justifies a round.
100 Cottage Club Road. A few minutes’ walk from the hotel.
The brewery that put Heady Topper, the double IPA that started the haze craze, on every beer list in America. The Stowe brewery pours tastings and sells cans to go, and it is quite literally around the corner from the hotel. People drive hours for this; you can walk.
1859 Mountain Road. A few minutes by car.
Lagers and ales brewed on site, a full pub menu, and one of the best patios on Mountain Road. The summer beer garden is an institution.
1333 Luce Hill Road. About ten minutes by car.
Austrian-style lagers from the von Trapp family’s brewery, poured in a timber bierhall with mountain views and pretzels the size of steering wheels. “A little of Austria, a lot of Vermont.”
17 Town Farm Lane. A few minutes’ walk from the hotel.
Dry, inventive hard cider made in town, with a taproom pouring flights and seasonal one-offs, a short walk from the hotel, right by West Branch Gallery.
128 Main Street, in the village.
The local pick for breakfast: biscuit sandwiches, pancakes, strong coffee, in a small room that fills fast on weekends. Worth the wait.
618 South Main Street. A few minutes by car.
Breakfast and lunch with real vegetable ambition: bowls, salads, sandwiches, smoothies, and the town’s best answer for vegetarians.
2251 Mountain Road. About five minutes by car.
The sandwich stop on the way to the mountain. Build a trail lunch, grab coffee and provisions, and go.
144 Main Street, in the village.
Coffee shop up front, serious Vermont bottle shop in back. Morning espresso and takeaway cans for the room, solved in one stop.
5781 Mountain Road. About fifteen minutes by car.
Mansfield and Spruce Peak together: over a hundred trails, the legendary Front Four, and the East’s most storied ski town at the bottom of the hill. On an Epic Pass? This is your mountain.
700 Trapp Hill Road. About ten minutes by car.
The first commercial cross-country ski center in America, founded by the family from The Sound of Music, with some 60 kilometers of groomed and backcountry trails through meadow and forest. Ski to the cabin for soup; it’s tradition.
Route 108 past the resort, at the winter road closure.
When the road closes under snow, the Notch becomes a walking route into the mountains; snowshoers and backcountry skiers climb past the frozen cliffs in near silence. One of the most striking winter walks in New England.
350 Park Street, in the village. About five minutes by car.
The town rink, with public-skate hours and rentals. An easy family evening a mile from the hotel.
Stops along Mountain Road near the hotel.
From late November into early April, the free Mountain Road Shuttle runs the length of Route 108 between the village and the lifts, every 20 to 30 minutes. Ride it to the mountain and back and leave the car buried; it’s the local way.
The hotel, and everywhere this guide points.
Mountain Road puts all of it within reach, and the Rec Path is already in the backyard.
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