SNOWSKIING / SNOWBOARDING

[H2S]

In April, 2018 I purchased a 2018-2019 Season IKON Ski Pass for $600. It was good for up to 5 days lift tickets each at more than 30 major Western resorts. Was a good deal, considering one day lift tickets at the giant factory resorts (Aspen, Vail, Alta, Jackson Hole, Big Sky, etc) were averaging $150. I spent most of the summer 2018 planning a "trip of discovery" - with a goal of skiing one resort several times then moving along to another, and another - until hospitalization, death or burnout. Ended up skiing 19 resorts in 7 states & Canadian provinces 27 times over a 39-day travel period. Was glorious, no news/politics, had fabulous conditions almost everywhere.

Colorado - Winter Park, Copper, Aspen Snowmass, Aspen Ajax, Aspen Highlands, Steamboat...
Utah - Alta, Snowbird, Solitude, Brighton, Deer Park, Powder Mountain...
Wyoming - Grand Targhee, Jackson Hole...
Montana - Big Sky, Bridger Bowl...
Alberta - Banff Sunshine, Lake Louise...
British Columbia - Revelstoke Mountain

Great fun thing about the 2019 trip was that 12 of the 19 resorts skied were first time visits (hell, for that matter it'd been at least 15 years since skiing the other 7) so it really was a trip of discovery.

 

[H2S]

In April 2019 I copped a 2019/2020 Season Mountain Collective Pass for $400... allowed for up to two days lifts. Buddy and I skied A-Basin, Aspen Snowmass, Alta, Powder Mountain and Grand Targhee... where my buddy had, perhaps, his worst day ever; and I had, definitely, my best day ever - riding 54" of magic powder. Addictive stuff, powder... two weeks after returning to Michigan I couldn't stand it... lifelong dream to ski the "Powder Highway." Started in Whitefish,MT, then hit Fernie,BC, Panorama,BC, Kimberly,BC, Revelstoke,BC and Kicking Horse,BC. On the way home I popped down to Big Sky,MT - which we had missed earlier in the year because it was too damn cold (-8°/windy).

 

[H2S]

Didn't ski the 2020-2021 season - covid.
Decided to wing it for the 2021-2022 season. Started at Whitefish,MT, dropped down to Montana Snowbowl,MT and Bridger Bowl,MT... wife flew in to Bozeman, drove to Grand Targhee,WY for a week, then down to Powder Mountain,UT for 3 days... dropped wife off in SLC then returned to Targhee for another 10 days before heading home.

 

[H2S]

and that brings us to-date... We've got a cabin rented for a week in late January 2023 in Grand Targhee. Big news: New high speed 6-seat 'Colter' Chairlift to service the 600-acre "Peaked Area" - formerly open only to $350/day snowcat customers. I got a pair of pure powder skis (lol, called Tubbys - handmade in Michigan) for the trip.



so...

Do you ski or ride?
Where?
What are your favorite resorts?

 

[H2S]

I'm an off-piste, back country, untracked wilderness but no cliffs glade-loving bump-hating skier who runs groomed highways only by necessity... but I am old and opinionated, so -

Most Challenging Terrain: (1.) Kicking Horse - death defying... ended up riding the "Stairway to Heaven" lift and skiing the steep glades of "Redemption Ridge", probably aged 10 years during the 5 hours here, (2.) Jackson Hole - 1st thing you should do is to upgrade all trail designations at least one level (ie: their BLUE is everybody else's BLACK.)
Best Powder Skiing: (1.) Grand Targhee, (2.) Alta - ie, heaven by any other name, (3.) Powder Mountain, (4.) Steamboat
Biggest Everything: (1.) Revelstoke, (2.) Big Sky, (3.) Panorama - was like skiing the Smithsonian (two days just don't cut it!)
Treasures: (1.) Powder Mountain - 8,000 acres with max of 1,500 skiers, (2.) Fernie - open bowl skiing at it's best (Calgary's little secret.)
Resorts Grizzled Old Ski Bums Go To Die: (1.) Montana Snowbowl - virtually unknown, unheralded and yet the parking lot is filled with Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Oregon tags, (2.) Bridger Bowl - Cocky doesn't cut it at this place... took a couple wrong turns and ended up looking down a nightmarish icy rocky stumpy vw bumpy extreme double black elevator shaft called ZITS... really, you couldn't see the bottom from the top... thankfully had a dry pair of pants in the car.


Powder Mountain - "Southface" at shuttle pickup

 

[Debbie Does]

Been skiing for 40 years. Unfortunately, that puts me at 75 years old and my body is too beat to do it anymore. Heart condition and a bad knee.

I’ve been out west a few times, but I’ve always been an eastern skier in New England. Northern Cow Hampshire for a while, then Killington, but as I became a Dad we switched to the more friendly Sunday River. Skied there for years. My last day of skiing was with the new girlfriend in my late 60s. We skied Camden Snow Bowl in Maine, one of the few places where you can ski a decent mountaintop while looking out at the Atlantic Ocean across the harbor.

I still dream about skiing a lot.

Places I’d go again if I get reincarnated: Steamboat in Colorado and Whistler in Canada.

 

[H2S]

Been skiing for 40 years. Unfortunately, that puts me at 75 years old and my body is too beat to do it anymore. Heart condition and a bad knee.

I’ve been out west a few times, but I’ve always been an eastern skier in New England. Northern Cow Hampshire for a while, then Killington, but as I became a Dad we switched to the more friendly Sunday River. Skied there for years. My last day of skiing was with the new girlfriend in my late 60s. We skied Camden Snow Bowl in Maine, one of the few places where you can ski a decent mountaintop while looking out at the Atlantic Ocean across the harbor.

I still dream about skiing a lot.

Places I’d go again if I get reincarnated: Steamboat in Colorado and Whistler in Canada.

You're lucky to have endured 40+ years of Eastern hardpack... good for you.
I popped a medial meniscus on the last day skiing Targhee this year... not a bother... doctor says take pills - which I don't, go ahead and go skiing again, if I wreck it further they'll operate... so comforting. I'm 72 and verging my Accelerated Decrepitude phase.
I've been a lifelong addict of powder skiing... many think it's more exhausting... I think just the opposite - it's "floating"... get in the groove and let gravity and feather soft snow waft you down the slope with very little effort... if at all possible, try it.

and Steamboat or Whistler would be perfect to do so. go for it.

 

[Podunkparte]

Been a couple years since I've taken the board up, but I've been to Whistler/Blackcomb 4x and Mt. Hood once, apart from my local pass.

 

[H2S]

Been a couple years since I've taken the board up, but I've been to Whistler/Blackcomb 4x and Mt. Hood once, apart from my local pass.

The Pacific Northwest offers a whole new bucket list of great resorts for someone like me. Maybe next year... or March

 

[Podunkparte]

The Pacific Northwest offers a whole new bucket list of great resorts for someone like me. Maybe next year... or March

Whistler is great for a getaway long weekend involving sightseeing and all, but I was really impressed by Mt Hood when it comes to the ski terrain itself. I had a ton of fun there.

 

[H2S]

got the new Tubby120s and bindings - lol, things are surfboards...
also got the Monster98s tuned...
looking to drive MI to CO early January, ski A-Basin, Copper and Steamboat...head west to Salt Lake, do Solitude, pick up wife at SLC... head north to Targhee for a week... drop wife off at SLC, stay Utah, do Alta & Snowbird... head east back to CO - hoping to run down Durango-way for Purgatory and Telluride... looking to be back in MI sometime mid-February.

then we'll spend a couple of weeks in Florida thawing out

 

[H2S]

Heroes... we all have them... one of mine is a guy named Bill Briggs. 1971. Was at a bar in Aspen when someone reported that some guy in Jackson had just skied the Grand Teton - to a chorus of BULLSHITNOFUCKINGWAYYOU'REOUTTAYOURMIND.



His route required a free-hanging rappel down a 165-foot (50 m) cliff face, which he completed with his skis on. Realizing, the next day, that his story would be doubted, he convinced Virginia Huidekoper to fly over the still-visible ski tracks with a photographer on board and document his feat from a Cesna 182.[3] The photograph of Briggs graceful ski turns winding down the face of such a famously steep and treacherous mountain sparked widespread interest in extreme skiing.

The guy is now 90, still living and playing banjo/guitar at a local dive in Jackson, WY. Is a God. I met and paid him obeisance two years ago.

 

[H2S]

looks to be another epic season on the Grand Tetons' Western slope...
as of this afternoon 01.DEC.2022, Targhee already has a 52" base - with a season total of 115"...
almost ten feet of snow by December. That's good.

Mountain Report

www.grandtarghee.com

bud I know out of Denver, retiree, 50, spends his winters chasing big snowstorms in a tricked-out Mercedes Sprinter... says his "sources" suggest hitting Tahoe/Mammoth early... gonna be monster season in Pacific NW and BC... ID, WY, UT and MT might be epic... and CO and NM might suck vs years past. Guy's an exceptional skier but I take his sources with a grain of doubt - he said don't bother doing Targhee two years ago. I did anyway, and hit 54" of cold feathers... if I'd have died on the hill that day, it might have been only a short step from one heaven to another.

 

[H2S]

FACTORY RESORTS - Vail/Aspen

VAIL-ASPEN/1970: In November I drove my 1964 Volvo PV544 out to Colorado from Michigan…slept in my father’s army down sleeping bag in Vail’s main parking lot for a week…packing snow in the morning for a daily ticket then skiing all day… got a job folding clothes for Olympian Dave Gorsuch… skied Riva Ridge with him and Olympian Roger Staub several times. I moved to Aspen in December 1970, stayed in employee housing at Snowmass; eventually bought an 8’ X 32’ trailer moored 20 miles away at Basalt’s KOA Kampground. Drove a 1937 Rolls Royce for the Aspen Cab Company, first fare was Henry Mancini. Met, spent varying amounts of time with Frank Jackson (king of the ski bums), Hunter S. Thompson (ran for Sheriff of Pitkin Co –wanted to rename Aspen “Fat City”-… almost won), Olympians Pepi Stiegler, Stein Erikson, Billy Kidd (such an arrogant asshole), Jean Claude Killy and Spider Sabich; also met John Denver, Hugh & Barbi Hefner, ballerina Gelsie Kirkland and murderess Claudine Longet, et al.

I skied a lot…virtually every day for two winters... often with or close to fabulous talents like those listed above (I chased Killy down the Highlands’ Moment of Truth at full tilt in two feet of heavy powder one day – s’where I learned skiing ‘deep & steep’.) We skied lots of off-track back country stuff, sometimes with balloons (fun, but hairy.) One morning in March, 1972 I drove up Independence Pass to the ‘pass-closed-for-the-winter’ barrier, hiked up the Rangers’ Jeep Tracks several miles, then trudged –without skins- the remaining eight+ miles upwards, to an appropriately nightmarish 300’ chute not too far from the summit. Two days later, one of the helicopter-services spread word that some suicidal fool had left a single track down one of the Pass’s most dangerous chutes – no body was found. Spider Sabich bought me drinks at the Wheeler Opera House Bar when he was told I was that ‘fool’… we skied together a couple of times after that… I couldn’t keep up with him… was the best skier I ever knew.

That was 50 years ago. Aspen and Vail then still held traces of "small town local flavor" even as they were rocketing to global eminence. These days both resorts are become vast expanses of multi-$million condo neighborhoods/villas surrounding base lift/gondola/tram areas that are as crowded as Black Friday Malls... mile-long lines of wannabe snobs... plastic smiles on resort personnel... ditto Alta/Snowbird, Mammoth, Big Sky and Jackson Hole.

re Jackson Hole... just about the time Bill Briggs skied the Grand Teton in 1971, many locals, ranchers, hippies, etc were being displaced by millionaires buying up property and developing it for other millionaires... joke around about has it that those millionaires are now being displaced by billionaire investors... funny, huh.

 

[H2S]

as of this afternoon 01.DEC.2022, Targhee already has a 52" base - with a season total of 115"...

as of today 16.JAN base is 84"... season ttl 245" ... I've been checking mtn reports and webcams every day... It's been a banner snow year so far, and yet the slopes are as empty as ever... lol... Jackson Hole, the massive Factory Resort on the other side of the Tetons, is crowded as hell... Targhee's definition of 'crowded' is a little different, as in: "hey, where'd those three dudes come from?" lol, it's wonderful.

I won't be doing the Colorado portion of this year's trip due to late start (leaving MI tomorrow 1700 miles straight west to SLC)... might still hit Solitude, then on to Grand Targhee next week. am stoked.

My Denver storm chaser friend made it to Mammoth just before they got 7 FEET in two days a week ago - so much they had to shut down the lifts for a time... after digging out of his van, he skinned uphill, dodged a few avalanches... pretty much had the whole mountain to himself (and a few hundred others, but). Guess how much I envy/despise that sob, go on, guess.

Here's cheers to all skiers and sliders. Invite you to share your times.

 

[H2S]

Got back to Michigan last night. Outbound hit a blizzard that took out NEB I-80... took plowed local roads 400 miles to Cheyenne, WY... skied Targhee 4 times (two merely spectacular sunny cobalt sky days, one whiteout spooky in the clouds and -as luck would have it- one on the day following the biggest snowfall of the year (25" of cold smoke)... couldn't have asked for more... but then

two days at Powder Mountain, Eden/Utah kinda raised the bar... paid ridiculous nothing price of $25 for a single snowcat ride up to "Lightning Ridge"... sometimes, messing with gravity can be the best experience possible... that one run would have justified the whole trip.



Lighting Ridge. Powder Mtn, Utah

 

[Debbie Does]

I remember a trip to Aspen long ago. The snow was great and plentiful. Our last night they had a huge snowstorm, but we headed out only to find the planes weren't going in or out. There were all these idiots screaming at the small ground crew that they HAD TO GET TO LOS ANGELES!

I quietly went to the counter and asked the crew if we could get our bags and skis back. They realized we were the most sane people there. They ALL left the desk to help us, got all our bags immediately and we were at the top of the mountain in an hour. Epic day. I laughed seeing the closed airport from the top of Ajax.

 

[H2S]

Brother Don and SiL Holly have lived in Dillon, COLO for the last 40 years. Very outdoorsy... hiking camping xcountry skiing and snowskiing. Both of them are exceptional skiers... they've got season passes to Arapahoe Basin - which they mostly hit on Sunday afternoons after the "front range" crowds head home. I'm sure many posters here have skied A-Basin... I've been a fan since the pre-tunnel 1970s when everyone had to take the Loveland Pass East/West (we'd ski the Pass's cutbacks and back country off the Divide all day - hitchhike back to the summit and do it again)... when we had a spare $4, though, we could buy one-ride tickets to the Basin's lift summit, sidestep 50' higher and slip over the backside ridge into wonderful out-of-bounds steeps and vastnesses... loser of the flips would be waiting far below on Montezuma road. (NOTE: the Backside is now developed and served by lifts.)
A-Basin is fiercely independent... is not affiliated with, and consistently turns down association with monster resort conglomerates. It is also one of the first resorts to open and last to close (October > July)
We skied it last Friday. Signature run, as always, was the ever infamous crotch-tightening Pallavicini... funny, I completely forgot how feeking cold it was at -4° during that drop.

 

[H2S]

all those beautiful sunny days on the slopes out west, somehow, did absolutely nothing for our vitamin D - the deficiency of which was entirely eliminated this past week... spent three nights in South Beach - highlighted by a self-indulgent regale at Joe's Stone Crab... visited relatives in Weston one night then laid about our FLL hotel's cement pond drinking ginny tonix for the last three days - doing our livers as little good as our epidermal tissues.

 

[H2S]

Getting a 2023-2024 Mountain Collective Pass ( Multi Resort Ski Pass | Mountain Collective Season Ski Passes ) next week. Pass allows for up to two ski days at each of 24 resorts. Plan is to drive out of Michigan to Calgary, cut a swath down Canada's Powder Highway then head south to the states:
Banff Sunshine 1X, Lake Louise 1X, Revelstoke 2X, Panorama 1X, Sun Valley 2X, Grand Targhee 2X, Snowbasin 1X, Alta 1X, Snowmass 1X and Arapahoe 2X... throw in a couple of "must do" resorts not participating (Kicking Horse, Fernie, Red Mtn and Powder Mtn) and we've got a month's worth of sliding and driving.

or

take up residence in my Scottsdale, AZ friend's garage and play golf all winter. hmmm