RFI: US Ski Destinations

[rob_s]

Keeping the title intentionally vague, but listing some specific details about us below:


Looking at March 2022, our spring break. Mid-month.
Wife grew up skiing, wants kids to experience it.
Kids, girls, will be 11 and 14 by this time. They may or may not take to the skiing themselves.
Dad (me) did not grow up skiing and frankly thinks learning at 47 years old and then not doing it again for 3-5 yes is kind of a waste of time & money.
This means we want options other than skiing in and around town.
Possibility of mom and kids arriving a few days early, doing the skiing, and dad joining mid-week to do other things.
Current front runner locations are Park City, Vail, and Jackson Hole.
Wife and kids were supposed to ski Jackson Hole in March of 2020. Got there and everything shut down for Covid. Flew back early after 2 days rolling around in the snow, no skiing. Kids really want to go back.
Accommodations should, ideally, be some sort of townhouse/condo situation where the kids can walk out the back door and play in the snow while grownups sit and have coffee, vs a “hotel” where they have to take two elevators and a escalator to get outside, and we’d have to go with them.
Sweet spot would be $300/night but could go up or down, particularly if wife and kids were able to stay for the $30l/night and then we upgrade to a different accommodation once dad arrives.

[Duelist]

Grew up in Utah. Park City is what you seek. Jackson and Vail are also good, but my impression is that they are also more expensive. I haven’t lived there in a long time, though, and it’s been longer since I cared about skiing in any meaningful way, so I could be wrong, but my AZ family who still care to ski travel to Park City to do it.

[Boxy]

Consider Snowshoe WV as an alternate to the West. Condos with kitchens, a church. Kind of like a ski village. Mileage may vary.

[Totem Polar]

Sun Valley, Idaho might be worth a look as well.

[YVK]

I think PC would be the better option. As already mentioned, it will likely be cheaper than Veil and Jackson Hole. PC has an advantage of having a large number of other skiing resorts along the Wasatch front, sometimes folks like sampling different areas. Less frequently, one area could ne closed to avalanche control or may have better visibility and people drive somewhere else. From Powder Mountain to Snowbasin up north to PC to Alta/ Snowbird you have about 8 national and international level resorts within 90 min. You also have SLC if you don't want to ski.

A concept of cost containment applies poorly to skiing but check prices of chairlift access at different places. It has been an absolute robbery lately.

[TheNewbie]

Wife and I went to Angel Fire NM in January. I didn’t ski, but she did.


Angel Fire is incredibly boring if you’re not going to be skiing, and when I was there the lockdown made it feel like you were in a 1960s combloc postcard. I’m pretty interested in life, but that place even made me bored.


Red River I like better as a town.


My friends say staying in Red River is nicer, skiing in Angel Fire is nicer.

[DocGKR]

Deer Valley/Park City and surrounding areas have the most variety and options, as well as easy travel from SLC.

Lake Tahoe--Squaw Valley/Alpine Meadows, Heavenly, Northstar, Kirkwood, Mt. Rose, etc... is also a good choice with easy access from Reno or even Sacramento.

Silverthorne CO--Keystone, Copper, Breckenridge, A-Basin, Loveland, etc... offers a lot to do, but is more of a pain to get to up 70 from Denver.

Jackson, Sun Valley, Taos, Big Sky, Mammoth all have a bit less around them.

[HeavyDuty]

I don’t ski, but I honeymooned in Breckinridge and highly recommend it. It’s a town, not just a resort.

[rob_s]

A concept of cost containment applies poorly to skiing but check prices of chairlift access at different places. It has been an absolute robbery lately.

Wife found one hotel that's $700/night. Sounds insane, right? Maybe, but lift tickets are $10! Stay at a $400/night place and pay for 3 $100 lift tickets and might as well have been in the nicer place!

[rob_s]

Silverthorne CO--Keystone, Copper, Breckenridge, A-Basin, Loveland, etc... offers a lot to do, but is more of a pain to get to up 70 from Denver.

Wife mentioned she's already hearing 70 is a nightmare. To the point that she'd likely come in on a Thursday and we'd all leave on a Monday. Hearing traffic out of Denver is a disaster on Fridays, and same for back in on Sundays.

[Totem Polar]

Wife found one hotel that's $700/night. Sounds insane, right? Maybe, but lift tickets are $10! Stay at a $400/night place and pay for 3 $100 lift tickets and might as well have been in the nicer place!

For sure, packages are a thing. Transportation and concierge too.

[DMF13]

It's been a couple years since I was able to ski in Colorado, but I'd recommend Breckenridge over Vail, given what you're looking for, to include things to do other than skiing.

For all of you who have never skied before, take lessons from a real ski instructor. Put your kids in a lesson separate from you. Group lessons are fine, so no need to spend extra for private lessons. Lessons in the morning, ski as a family in the afternoon. I'd do that for the first two days of skiing, and any skiing after that just do it as a family.

At most resort towns you can find plenty of condo/townhouse properties that will have quick access to the mountain. Ski-in/Ski-out is ridiculously expensive, but many ski towns have a shuttle bus system that can get you from a spot very near your condo to the mountain.

I see you are listing Florida as home. If you aren't used to spending time at altitude, work on cardio now, and when you get there hydrate very well. Also, avoid the booze. Altitude sickness is real, and being out of shape, dehydrated, and/or hitting the booze can make it more likely to have it, and make it much worse.

[YVK]

Wife found one hotel that's $700/night. Sounds insane, right? Maybe, but lift tickets are $10! Stay at a $400/night place and pay for 3 $100 lift tickets and might as well have been in the nicer place!

A tangent but somewhat relevant: vacationing in touristy areas has been a nightmare lately. Son and I went to Portland and Acadia Park in June, 500 to 700 a night and a single bed, fortunately king size, is the only room we could find. Every damn restaurant or popular eatery had at least one hour wait, first come first serve only, and only upscale expensive places still had reservations.

More relevant: one day of skiing for two people plus pizza was $360 a couple of years ago at the Canyons (PC). It was on a holiday, maybe even Xmas, but we were joking that round-trip flights to Vegas would've been about the same as lift passes.

[rob_s]

A tangent but somewhat relevant: vacationing in touristy areas has been a nightmare lately. Son and I went to Portland and Acadia Park in June, 500 to 700 a night and a single bed, fortunately king size, is the only room we could find. Every damn restaurant or popular eatery had at least one hour wait, first come first serve only, and only upscale expensive places still had reservations. [\quote]
We have had similar experiences, and we won’t be flying again until this proposed trip 7 months from now in the hopes the things will have sorted out by then to some degree.

Also part of the reason I’d like to find a condo or townhouse with at least some semblance of a kitchen.

[quote]More relevant: one day of skiing for two people plus pizza was $360 a couple of years ago at the Canyons (PC). It was on a holiday, maybe even Xmas, but we were joking that round-trip flights to Vegas would've been about the same as lift passes.

This is a large part of the reason I won’t be skiing. I see no reason to dump a ton of money into learning something I’m never going to do/use again.

[trailrunner]

Keeping the title intentionally vague, but listing some specific details about us below:


Dad (me) did not grow up skiing and frankly thinks learning at 47 years old and then not doing it again for 3-5 yes is kind of a waste of time & money.
Current front runner locations are Park City, Vail, and Jackson Hole.


I had never skied or snowboarded until I took my first snowboard lesson when I was 47.

I've been to both Park City and Jackson Hole. Both were fine places with far better trails than I could find in the mid-Atlantic. Park City was easy to get to since it's by a Delta hub in SLC. I took the first flight out in the morning, took a reasonably priced shuttle from the airport to the town, and I was on the slope by 1400 local time. I stayed in town in a condo (I was by myself) which is really almost walking distance to the slopes at Park City. They have a good and free shuttle bus network to get you from town to the slopes.

Jackson Hole was great. It was a little harder to get to because I had to take another flight from SLC. Free shuttle from the airport to the ski area. I stayed in a room at the base and could walk to the lifts each morning. There was a shuttle into town, which I took one night just to do something different. I had a great time there. It snowed my first night there, so there were great conditions. The altitude kicked my ass -- on my first run, I fell, and was huffing and puffing getting back up. I was mad at myself for being out of shape, then I realized that I was at 9500 feet or something like that. I signed up for a lesson one day. I was the only one in the class, so I wound up getting a private lesson from a girl half my age. I spent the day chasing her all over the mountain. By the end of the day I was utterly wiped out.

[trailrunner]

A tangent but somewhat relevant: vacationing in touristy areas has been a nightmare lately. Son and I went to Portland and Acadia Park in June, 500 to 700 a night and a single bed, fortunately king size, is the only room we could find. Every damn restaurant or popular eatery had at least one hour wait, first come first serve only, and only upscale expensive places still had reservations.


We were up in that area at the beginning of the month to attend a wedding. Lodging was over $400 per night. The worst part was the rental car - $1,000 for a Saturday - Wednesday rental.

[rob_s]

I had never skied or snowboarded until I took my first snowboard lesson when I was 47.

My objection isn't just the age alone. I love learning new things. But I have to feel like they're somehow useful or going to be used again. Learning to standup paddleboard? yes, I'm down for that (not that it's particularly hard). Skiing? meh. So my resistance or disinterest in skiing is a combination of:

Age: I'll be 47 by then and I *know* that learning physical things is more difficult now than it was 20 years ago.
Geography: I live in SE Florida and won't be leaving here anytime soon, most likely. Making getting to a ski location pretty involved, making it less likely/frequent.
Family: we rarely go back to the same place twice. and due to the geography mentioned above, not likely to return to skiing.
Kids: subset of family, but I honestly don't see my kids taking to the skiing. Maybe the older one, but the little one is 50/50 at best.


Any one of those things might not keep me from doing it, and honestly the geography issue alone might change my mind (if I lived in Utah there's lots of new things I'd be doing!).

[Wake27]

Breck as a town is nice but I greatly preferred Aspen for skiing. Speaking from the perspective of a beginner skier.


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[DDTSGM]

ElDora - https://www.eldora.com/

Family friendly, affordable, not a whole bunch of stuff to get new skiers in trouble.

I took both my boys and our foster-kids (two different trips) there for their first time skiing.

Just outside Boulder.

[rob_s]

Looks like we are honing in on Park City. Thinking about the wife and kids coming in early, taking transport to a ski in/out stay for a few days, then I’ll fly in, pick up rental car (wife has heard it’s best to get 4wd?), come pick them up, and settle in to an Airbnb townhouse or something for the remainder of the trip. Since they don’t plan to leave whatever “village”she settles on, they won’t need a car, but once I get there we’ll want to see the Olympic village, etc. so having the car will be more important.