Ski Sundown — Attraction in New Hartford

I wanted to like this place, I really did. Be warned there are no easy hills on this mountain for beginners.

For a local spot it might not be bad, but compared to other ski places this one is pretty bad.

Non-skiers: the inside offers some food and drinks. The food is prepared in advance and is sitting under heat laps (think highway McDonald's where you grab your own burgers). The food itself was pretty mediocre. For $17 my wife got hard fries, and a rubbery grilled cheese and soda. She was disappointed.

The place was pretty dirty, every surface was sticky/grimy. The carpet in the lodge was so worn down it almost looks like vinyl flooring at this point.

The staff were friendly and helpful.

The place was packed with swearing kids and teens, gave me middle school vibes. Sort of off-putting when the table next to you is full of tweens talking about how some old lady tried to talk to them.

Seems like a local hang out for kids. Maybe best to go during school hours.

Bathrooms were pretty dirty, although could be because we were there at the end of the day, hard to say.

The bar was packed we couldn't get in, probably all the parents who ditched their kids elsewhere.

Skiers: even in the discounter dusk hours I didn't feel like my ticket was worth it.

The easy green trails have pretty steep drop offs, combined with icy snow it creates a pretty intermediate or advanced ski trails. The mountain itself is pretty small, which probably forced the owners to run the trails so steep as they didn't have the property/room to spread the trails out. There are bottlenecks on the trails that are no wider than 15-20 feet.

I like to judge a mountain's difficulty level based on how many people are sitting down instead of skiing, this mountain had quiet a few people chilling and sitting down, unsure of how to proceed. The trails were also full of swearing teens, some flying down pretty recklessly imo.

The trails have a sharp drop off from the snow to the tree areas, a few of these are easily 2-4 feet high, while great for jumps I can see it being terrifying and dangerous for a beginner to fly off them.

The area at the base of the trail was a muddy slushy mess.

The beginner area on the right side is a bit steeper than other bunny hills I've seen, the icy conditions also made it rough on those skiing there. Many were sitting down catching their breath. I saw very few people on the bunny hill, which are usually packed.

Overall: I guess if you're a skilled skier/snowboarder and avoid the lodge then give this place a try. My favorite mountain in the area so far for skiing is...

Clearly they don't care if you look at the reply. How are you not responsible for your employees actions? They broke the lock and damaged my board considering this happened on an empty Tuesday, I was one of the last people out there and it was during cleanup time. We were sitting window side in the lodge there was no one out there but staff. If it wasn't your staff, don't you think they clearly would have also taken a brand new top end snowboard vs just breaking the lock.....

Prove me wrong by showing me your security footage which I asked for in email so we could handle this not publically online. Feel free to call me, my phone number is in the emails Patty since ignored to go over this matter, privately.

All of these issues were reported promptly. An email the next morning is prompt when this was spotted after closing, and last year I did report these issues. You did nothing about it except for refund a day onto my pass, as you refused to address the situation that night.

It's a shame, the ops crew does a fantastic job with what they are given. Conditions are always great even in CT where we don't have a long of a winter as up north - but don't expect any sort of help from the staff.

Recently my board lock was smashed at the end of the night when locked up on the rack (yet the board wasn't stolen), there wasn't anyone else left skiing and the crew was starting to pack up. I emailed customer service asking if they can explain why the lock is shattered as well as why is there a nice gauge taken out of my top sheet from where the lock was smashed. The screenshot attached was their response. I'm really not concerned if they can read minds, they could not be lazy and look into the issue but this is how they treat customers.

Last season during covid, the same staff refused to take action for teenagers ripping off the masks of strangers and throwing snow in their faces in attempts to make viral TikTok videos. I've watched teenagers pelt 5 -7 year old children with snowballs from the lift in front of employees with no actions taken. This place literally doesn't care as long as you are coming back to pay again. Sadly I won't be paying again for my pass next year unless they can properly address situations like those mentioned above. I'd rather drive further to Southington or Wachusett at least I know I'll have a better chance of basically not being told to F off if I approach the staff about...

Unfortunately I have to give ski sundown a one star review. I grew up coming to ski sundown with my dad and I learned how to snowboard here. I moved to granby CT 2 years ago and luckily sundown is only 15 mins from my house so I planned a night to go riding with 4 others. We had a blast, but on the last run my boyfriends binding snapped in half. Since the clearance between the chairlift and the ground was so low it snapped the binding. An employee from sundown approached us and said he never saw a binding break like that before it had to be from the chairlift... and he said we should go inside and tell the staff. So we did and he was promised a callback the next day- which was Saturday. We waited all day Saturday and Sunday... no call. So I sent an email and I was very nice about it. I explained the situation and said he was promised a call back by a manger. Waited a few days ... no reply. So I called ski sundown and explained the situation and was told very rudely on the phone that “they’ve been busy, they received my email” they also said not to worry I will get a call back, something will be done about this situation and the owner will get involved. I waited a week... still no reply so I sent out another email and was given a reply instantly. They said they were so sorry and they will forward this email to their manager tomorrow. THe manager patty Dionne got back to me and all she said was that she could put in for a rental for him... so I asked her if they would be able to replace the binding, or give us a DISCOUNTED price, since the chairlift as not main items properly and it broke my bfs equipment. She replied back with “no sorry” that’s it. Just “no sorry” and I asked why not? Why was I given the run around for 2 weeks? Why was I told something would be done? Why was I told the owner would get involved ? And her response: “sorry for the miscommunication” THATS IT!!!!! So I replied to her email and asked if I could speak with the owner. No response. Ignored me again! So, hopefully this review reaches the owner. Very upset about this situation. We were planning on getting season passes next year but we will probably never go back to sundown after...