The Shawmut Grill - Swain

Absolutely love this place ! It's not like the other local place. Swain has the whole ski town feel. Bar in town as well as at the resort itself ! Good food, twilight skiing, tons of variation with good staff. The locals need to back off though before otherwise people are going to really attack them for damaging the swain experience

Great small ski resort. We went 2/18/23 and it was pure ice (due to weather- not the resorts fault) so we didn't get to see much of it. I spent a decent amount of time sitting at The Shawmut Grille on the patio in the sun as I've already broken bones skiing on ice so wasn't trying to do that again. The bartender was wonderful, there was a great selection of beers-heavy on the sours, and the food was good! Prices were similar to regular (off ski resort) restaurants which I thought was great! Very nice open patio with fireplaces and Adirondack chairs where you can enjoy the view of the mountain. I'm looking forward to returning if and when we get any snow!

We had a fantastic ski lesson with Sam which was great for my wife who has never skied. Sam was super helpful and patient. I learn some new techniques to improve my skiing. For a beginner a lot of the runs can be a bit overwhelming, but I enjoyed getting back on the mountain as an intermediate skier. The blues off of Quad 2 and the green off Quad 3 were fun. You'll need a little more experience than first time skier to enjoy those steeper runs. There aren't any super easy beginner only sections, so I would advise you go super early at 9am on a Sunday (1 hour before lesson) at 10am. There's less people early, and more equipment to rent. I think the best run for beginners is on Quad 2, going halfway up. One of the long greens along the top right was way to slow, maybe from the super cold temperatures (10-15°F). We had to really work on pushing ourselves on the slow green. It was a workout. Note: We missed that green the first time and ended up on blues. At that point my wife wasn't with us, but that would have been a little too much for her ability. I'd go back, but I might need to take my wife to another resort to work on basics with a little less steep greens.

My fiancé and I went skiing here early in 2020 and enjoyed it. She's skied before, but it had been a long time, so it was perfect for her to get back into it. The only downside is that it's a smaller ski resort, which means the runs are a little shorter. I still had a great time though and we didn't experience long waits to get on the lifts.

Stephanie is amazing!! My family and I had an awesome experience at the Women's Ski Retreat. We will definitely be coming back. All the instructors were incredible.