Owners of Burke, Berkshire East, Catamount Take Ownership Stake in Smugglers’ Notch

Some of New England’s best terrain meets some of New England’s best operators

Smugglers’ Notch, the towering, snow-socked throwback ski area directly adjacent to Vail Resorts-owned Stowe mountain, will join a growing New England ski family that includes Burke Mountain in Vermont and Berkshire East and Catamount ski areas in Massachusetts. The Stritzler family, which has owned Smugglers’ Notch for 29 years, will retain an ownership stake in Smuggs.

“This partnership ensures Smugglers’ Notch can continue to evolve thoughtfully while staying true to who it is and why families love it,” said Bill Stritzler, whose tenure has been defined by an iron commitment to families and a resistance to the high-speed frills that have redefined much of the U.S. destination ski experience.

With a 2,610-foot vertical drop, 1,060 skiable acres, and 322 claimed inches of average annual snowfall, Smugglers’ Notch is the fourth-tallest, fourth largest, and second-snowiest ski area in the eastern United States. Its Madonna terrain, served top to bottom by a magnificent, 6,719-foot-long, 2,150-vertical-foot double chair, is one of the most notoriously thrilling terrain pods in American skiing.

But that double chair, a Hall machine built in 1963, is one of the 20 oldest chairlifts still operating in America. Sterling, the second-longest chairlift at Smuggs, is another Hall double that arrived the next year. In fact, all six of Smuggs’ chairlifts are doubles manufactured by Hall, a company that ceased operations decades ago. While Stritzler has replaced key components of these machines and notes that perhaps the only pieces of Madonna left over from the 1960s are the towers and other steel supports, the slowpoke lifts and antique patina have been a source of tension between locals who prize the yesteryear feel and a larger consumer base conditioned to high-speed lifts.

Easing Smuggs into the 21^st century while preserving its atmospheric, no-frills New England moxie will be the primary challenge for Jon Schaefer, officially the CEO of Bear Den Partners, which owns Burke, and longtime owner of Berkshire East and Catamount.

“Smuggs represents everything we believe skiing and riding should be,” said Schaefer. “This is not about changing Smuggs, it’s about supporting what already works, investing thoughtfully, and protecting the experience that families have cherished for generations. It goes without saying that the terrain at Smugglers Notch is some of the best in the east, and the resort receives some of the most snowfall east of the Rockies.”

Schaefer’s legacy over the past two decades suggests he is up for the task. Upon purchasing Burke earlier this year, he immediately announced a long-needed tripling of snowmaking capacity. After purchasing Catamount in 2018, he led its transformation from a rusty backwater into a modern ski area, installing a new chairlift, replacing two others, overhauling the snowmaking system, and adding new trails. He also helped nearby, falling-apart Bousquet modernize by replacing their antiquated summit lift and modernizing their lodge and snowmaking. Perhaps most notably, he yanked Berkshire East, which his family had owned since the late 1970s, into the modern era with a glade network, two brand-new quads, and steady terrain expansion, transforming it into the most interesting mountain in southern New England.

Northern Vermont is a different animal, and a better one. The line of resorts from Killington up through Sugarbush, Mad River Glen, Bolton Valley, Stowe, Smuggs, and Jay Peak regularly rack up double the snowfall of other major New England destinations, and provide the most reliable conditions and best terrain in the East.

Smuggs, then, gives Bear Den – which I will use as a catchall to include Smuggs, Burke, Berkshire East, and Catamount – the opportunity to grow into a major regional player, with as compelling a local offering as Boyne (Sunday River, Sugarloaf, Pleasant Mountain, Loon) or Vail (Stowe, Mount Snow, Okemo, Wildcat, Attitash, Mount Sunapee, Crotched). The company has long grouped Berkshire East and Catamount on a “Berkshire Summit” pass with Bousquet (which they do not own), and this year added limited access to Burke. A regional pass could be a powerful local alternative or add-on to national passes, with a hub-and-spoke network that begins with Catamount, just two hours north of New York City.

Smuggs has also long been a holdout from national ski passes, but Schaefer’s mountains have long been aligned with Indy Pass.

“I would certainly expect an independent resort like Smuggs and an independent pass like Indy to align,” Indy Pass owner Erik Mogensen told The Storm in a brief interview Wednesday morning. “We’re in full support of what Jon and everyone is doing.”

This mega-sale is the latest in a generational reshuffling of New England ski areas over the past four years, with longtime conglomerate-owned Killington, Pico, and Ragged landing with independent owners, and Jay Peak, Burke, and now Smuggs rolling into smaller regional or national conglomerates. These sales, taken as a whole, push back against assumptions that New England ski areas would inevitably come under the management of national operators based in Colorado and Utah.

This is a developing story. You can check out a live press conference at 3 p.m. ET today. I’ll have lots more to say on this. Stand by.