Family Ski Report: Magic Mountain

Like many New Englanders, I used to spend a lot of time (as in, the first 40 years of my life) grumbling about winter, but all of that changed once we started to explore skiing as a family. Skiing is the one activity that our entire family—spanning 8 to 46 years old—enjoys whole-heartedly and with excitement. It gets us outside for amounts of time otherwise unfathomable with a shovel in hand. It’s why I have grown so dedicated to demystifying the barriers to entry around skiing through editorial. And today I’m thrilled to report on Magic Mountain in Londonderry, Vermont, which my family fell in love with this past weekend.

1. Getting To Magic

Magic Mountain clocks in under 3 hours from Boston (around 2 hours, 50 minutes), with central options being to either cut across Massachusetts on Route 2 then head north at 91N, or head up 93N into New Hampshire then cut across New Hampshire and Vermont. It’s among the Southern Vermont ski properties closest to Boston.

2. The Vibe

Over the last several years I have explored a number of ski properties and truly, each of them has strengths and features that work for different families. And while bigger ski resorts offer lovely amenities, I have grown especially enamored of the mid-sized mountains because the vibe is more chill and things are less crazy when it comes to lift lines, lodges, and syncing up with your family through the day. In that vein, Magic Mountain was super relaxed, extremely friendly (the woman working the register at the Magic Mountain shop very well may be among the friendliest people on earth), and easy to navigate.

No joke, Jon said my smile was this big the whole weekend while skiing Magic Mountain

3. The Mountain

In advance of this trip, I had heard that Magic Mountain was for hard core skiers and riders, which led me to wonder whether I’d spend most of my time making sure Violet didn’t get run over by said hard core skiers and riders. However, the mountain is a true mix of terrain and was, in fact, completely family friendly. The property offers 39 trails, 11 glades, including terrain classified as 26% expert only, 18% advanced, 32% intermediate, and 24% beginner. The West side of Magic is apparently known for its expert terrain (this is likely where the hard core skier/rider reputation comes from), and while this side was not open during our visit, we had an awesome time on the East side, which features a mix of greens, blues, and blacks that allowed our mixed-level family plenty of fun and different options as we came down the mountain. The groomed conditions were fantastic, and though I have been working on my tight turns, I loved that the trails were nice and wide! It made for a very relaxed and happy ski experience for me (I stayed primarily on greens and blues). The rest of my crew tackled the full range of terrain, and while I know Laurel (the most adventurous of all of us) wished there were more black trails open, she had a great time and we were all properly exhausted by the end of the weekend!

Gorgeous view at the top of the red chair lift at Magic Mountain

4. Ticket Pricing

Bottom line, Magic Mountain wants to get people out skiing and wants it to be as affordable as possible. In addition to a variety of season pass options, their single-day passes offer flexibility (half vs. full day) with discounts for military, police, and firefighters, as well as a $29 rate for those who wish to just access the terrain park and beginner carpet (with handle tow lift)—this is huge for parents who want to test the ski and ride waters with their little ones (or are beginners themselves; I saw plenty of adults on the tow lift!) and are daunted by regular lift ticket prices. Magic Mountain also has some fun day specials, such as $29 (!) Throwback Thursdays, Friday and Sunday discounts for Vermont/New Hampshire residents, and a Friday carpool rate ($149 for 4 people max); hooray for encouraging carpooling!

5. Lessons

I worked with Ashley Bender of the Magic Mountain Snowsports Center to set up lessons for the girls. Not only was I impressed that Ashley was toting her 11-month-old on her hip while she was working (#momsgetthingsdone), but she was very tuned in to the report I gave on the girls’ ski abilities and connected Laurel and Violet with excellent instructors (thanks, Jim and Dan!). Given the way the scheduling worked out, the girls unexpectedly ended up with private lessons and both ended up advancing their technique and skiing available black diamond terrain. Violet was very excited to tell us this when we met up for lunch after their lessons (so much so that she waited for us all to be seated before announcing the news). SO AWESOME.

Snowsports Learning Center at Magic Mountain

6. Lodging

Magic Mountain does not have its own hotel, but right at the base of the property—an easy walk up to hop on the slopes—is Upper Pass Lodge, which is where we stayed. This property offers comfortable rooms and its own restaurant (and also an outdoor pool when it's warm out), which makes it easy to sink in and chill out; regular readers know that I love being able to land at a destination and then not drive anywhere! We stayed in a Family Deluxe room, which had a central room with two full beds + a desk and TV, a bathroom, and a smaller bunk room, which the girls loved, and which was great for giving us more space to spread out.

As I mentioned, the property has its own restaurant/bar and we hit Upper Pass Lodge’s Red Slate Restaurant on our first night, and the food was great; we sampled the full range of kid menu, traditional entrees (Friday fish fry, FTW!), and burgers. It’s also notable that they serve only Vermont produced beer, wine, and spirits.

One of my favorite things about Upper Pass Lodge is it’s lovely large main room, where Jon and I played backgammon by the fire and enjoyed our morning coffee. The main room also has board games and books for guests to enjoy. And the nice thing about a property this size is that it was totally comfortable for us to go hang out in the main room while the girls did their thing in our room.

7. Magic Mountain Food

Magic Mountain has an impressively large bar/restaurant, Black Line Tavern, where we had dinner on our second night and where people get their apres ski on and tune in to live music (there was live music Saturday night). We were very happy with the food there (high fives for having a Korean pulled pork sandwich on the menu; Laurel said it was great). And I was also really impressed with the Magic Mountain lodge cafe. Not only were the prices reasonable but in addition to standard fare like burgers, chicken fingers, and fries, they also had some excellent hot items; the chili was awesome, as was the roast beef hash and pot roast (these latter options being especially welcome since I’m gluten-free). In fact, the pot roast was so well received by everyone in my family (including 8-year-old Violet!) that on our ride home I Googled “pot roast recipe” and made one for the first time yesterday in my slow cooker! Totally unexpected side benefit of this visit; OMG we have another meal our whole family will eat!

8. General Cost Observation

One thing that struck me about Magic Mountain from top to bottom was pricing. Yes, they have options for ticket deals, as I described earlier, but one place where I often see (sometimes crazy) price inflation at resorts of all kinds is with food and the shops. In both cases, it was really great to have the food prices at the cafe and restaurants be reasonable, and also at the Magic Mountain ski shop, where because the prices were totally on the level, we ended up buying all manner of things! Weird psychology, right? Because the prices were fair (and the gear options were great!) we were excited to support the shop by buying more things! (Among our purchases, Jon and Laurel bossed me into buying the cutest tunic sweater!)

The shop at Magic Mountain, where we bought all the things!

9. Other Activities

Magic Mountain also offers a tubing park, and clinics if you want to work on navigating trees and steeps (read: challenging terrain; rocks possibly involved!), bumps and jumps (this would totally be Violet’s jam), and obstacles (boxes, hits, and rails). They also offer Uphill tours; I will say that I was super impressed with the people I saw skinning up the mountain last weekend. It looked thoroughly exhausting!

In a nutshell, Magic Mountain is a true gem if you’re looking for a relaxed, authentic vibe, a mix of terrain to suit the different abilities of your family, and an affordable experience. I know Jon and Laurel hope to return when the West side is open, but I’d be happy to ski the East side groomers any day!

Disclosure: Magic Mountain and Upper Pass Lodge kindly hosted my family while I explored the property for editorial consideration. All opinions and experiences are, of course, my own.