Bristol Mountain Ski Resort, Canandaigua

Despite the lower-than-usual snow fall this past winter season, the conditions for the twilight ski session the evening I went were excellent. Chair lifts lines moved along well, fire pits were lit and very inviting, and just overall a pleasant experience. Would’ve awarded 5 stars if the lighting was a little better on some of the trails. Conveniently located just 45 minutes south of Rochester, and in the picturesque Finger Lakes region.

It is a bit harder to grade given we went early in the season when there was only a limited number of runs open. On the positive side, I was pleasantly surprised it wasn't very crowded with short lift lines. The rental equipment was also in very good shape and staff friendly. The runs that were open were reasonably long and provided an easy and hard option. On the negative side, there were only two runs open, and it felt like the price paid wasn't a great value in comparison for such limited runs. It was also a bit confusing and overly cumbersome to not have anybody available at any ticket counters, forcing is to go through the much lengthier online process. Also, if you are a solid intermediate skier, you might want to wait because there essentially wasn't any runs that were just intermediate, so you'd be forced into doing easier runs than you would like or harder runs than you might be comfortable with.