Snowboarding in North America

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 20:10:57 GMT, (Chet Hayes)
allegedly wrote:

The conditions were pretty crappy,
melting, slush and the place was packed with British tourists. And to
get there, they flew from London to Newark, changed planes and went on
to Boston for a total flight of 11+ hours and then drove a couple
hours more. Had they just taken a flight to Colorado, they could have
gone to A-Basin and had excellent conditions and the total travel time
would have been an hour or two longer, at most. And the lodging/lift
tickets are much less than Killington. Why they were there, I'll
never know.

Chet

A lot of people tend to book their holidays way in advance of when they
actually go. Flights can get booked out, and there if you want to be
able to go where you actually want to go, it often pays to book early.

The flip side to that is the late deal. People will wait right until
the last moment, and see what deal the travel agents are offering.

A lot of Brits use "package holidays" where nearly everything is sorted
out: the flight, the transfer, hotel, ski hire etc. Often the only
extras are the spending money for booze and food - depending on the
deal.

The upside to this is the lack of hassle. One phone call or visit, and
one point of contact. There's also some one to fall back on if things
go wrong. The downside is obviously the lack of flexibility, and you
can end up going somewhere knowing that the conditions are crappy.

On a personal experience, I had flights booked to Seattle for months,
but the snow never really came. I had to either cancel the flight,
motel and car hire and take a loss on the cash, then re-book somewhere
else, or just get out there and hope things picked up.

It's not easy getting it right all the time

- Dave.

--
The only powder to get high on, falls from the sky.
http://www.vpas.org/ - Snowboarding the worlds pow pow -
Securing your e-mail

The Snowboard FAQ lives here - http://rssFAQ.org/

Switters wrote in message . ..
On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 20:10:57 GMT, (Chet Hayes)
allegedly wrote:

The conditions were pretty crappy,
melting, slush and the place was packed with British tourists. And to
get there, they flew from London to Newark, changed planes and went on
to Boston for a total flight of 11+ hours and then drove a couple
hours more. Had they just taken a flight to Colorado, they could have
gone to A-Basin and had excellent conditions and the total travel time
would have been an hour or two longer, at most. And the lodging/lift
tickets are much less than Killington. Why they were there, I'll
never know.

Chet

A lot of people tend to book their holidays way in advance of when they
actually go. Flights can get booked out, and there if you want to be
able to go where you actually want to go, it often pays to book early.


The flip side to that is the late deal. People will wait right until
the last moment, and see what deal the travel agents are offering.


Either way, it doesn't explain why anyone with any sense would travel
13+ hours each way from London to go to Killington, VT in mid April.
By mid April, you have an excellent chance of finding slush. With
maybe another hour or two of travel time, you could be in Colorado,
where you have a good chance of having decent conditions at places
like A-Basin. Or you could go to further north to Canada. Or you
could save your money and trouble and stay home.


A lot of Brits use "package holidays" where nearly everything is sorted
out: the flight, the transfer, hotel, ski hire etc. Often the only
extras are the spending money for booze and food - depending on the
deal.

The upside to this is the lack of hassle. One phone call or visit, and
one point of contact. There's also some one to fall back on if things
go wrong. The downside is obviously the lack of flexibility, and you
can end up going somewhere knowing that the conditions are crappy.



The issue isn't how it's booked, it's going a long way to the wrong
place for that time of year. Actually, given a choice anytime of year
of 13 hours to Killington or 15 to Colorado, I know what I would do.
In a typical year, the chances of finding great conditions are much
higher in Colorado, the mountain is bigger, the slopes are wider, less
crowded.



On a personal experience, I had flights booked to Seattle for months,
but the snow never really came. I had to either cancel the flight,
motel and car hire and take a loss on the cash, then re-book somewhere
else, or just get out there and hope things picked up.

It's not easy getting it right all the time

- Dave.

Which is why I highly recommended to the OP that he consider Summit
County, Colorado. The chances of finding excellent conditions there
are high all season and it's moderately priced.

On Wed, 06 Oct 2004 23:38:35 GMT, (Chet Hayes)
allegedly wrote:

Either way, it doesn't explain why anyone with any sense would travel
13+ hours each way from London to go to Killington, VT in mid April.

Well I'm not them, so can't comment. I've never done the East coast, but
maybe they like it, and don't care about powder. Some people just like
the sunshine.

This wasn't meant to get into it on the merits of CO vs VT, I was merely
pointing out why people might have booked VT in the first place, and not
been able to change, and indeed may not even wanted to change.

Each to their own. If they want to go there, let them. I'm glad that
1000s of people don't descend on my favourite mountains, else they
wouldn't be my favourite any more.

- Dave.

--
The only powder to get high on, falls from the sky.
http://www.vpas.org/ - Snowboarding the worlds pow pow -
Securing your e-mail

The Snowboard FAQ lives here - http://rssFAQ.org/

Utah is another option with all the places around Salt Lake/ Park City. Very
cheap places to stay if you don't mind staying off mountain. And good bus
service up the canyons to the resorts.

Tim

"Chet Hayes" wrote in message
m...
Neil Gendzwill wrote in message
...
Chet Hayes wrote:

The Copper Tickets I was going by was typical prices people actually
pay, not the one day window rate.

You can get deals everywhere, I'm comparing window rate to window rate
so at least it's apples and apples. And by the way, your "typical price
people pay" is still more expensive than the window rate at Lake Louise
($US50 is about $CDN64, Louise is $CDN60 this year).

The only Canadian resort I've been to was Whistler, I know it's very
expensive, and I'm sure other Canadian places are more inline with US.

Nope, they're cheaper.

My main point was that it was
incorrect to think that the US in general is a lot more expensive than
Candada. It sounds like we agree on that.

I don't think we agree. In general, you can save the exchange rate
(currently a little over 20%) by skiing in Canada. Which is why you see
hoards of British tourists in Banff on charter excursions. And why
we'll only ski in the states if we can find a killer deal or have some
other reason to go. Was awfully tempted to hit Aspen for the Summit
Expression Session this year but in the end it was just too far and too
expensive.

Neil


You keep focusing on the window lift ticket rates. In the end, the
lift tickets are only one part of the total cost. And I know for a
fact you can't get discount deals on lift tickets everywhere, as there
were none available at Whistler. In Summit County Colorado, discounts
are easy to get.

The bottom line is there are plenty of hotels in Summit County for
under $100 per night, peak season in March. Food costs are modest
with many choices available. Lift tickets can be had easily for
$35-50 to either Copper or Breckenridge which are among the top for
riding anywhere, with excellent conditions a high probability. From
there you can also drive 45 mins to Vail and you have other places
like A-Basin for late season riding there too. Everyone has to make
their own decision, if this is expensive. I don't think it's
expensive and considering what you get, it's an excellent value
proposition. As for Aspen, like Vail, it is more expensive than what
I recommended and I don't think it's a good value either.

I wouldn't make my decisions on what hoards of British tourist do.
This year in mid April I went up to Killington, VT for one last trip.
I only went because I had a season pass and could drive so I took a
chance that it might be worth it. The conditions were pretty crappy,
melting, slush and the place was packed with British tourists. And to
get there, they flew from London to Newark, changed planes and went on
to Boston for a total flight of 11+ hours and then drove a couple
hours more. Had they just taken a flight to Colorado, they could have
gone to A-Basin and had excellent conditions and the total travel time
would have been an hour or two longer, at most. And the lodging/lift
tickets are much less than Killington. Why they were there, I'll
never know. They likely went back and told everyone how expensive the
US was and how poor the conditions were.

Utah is another option with all the places around Salt Lake/ Park City.
Very
cheap places to stay if you don't mind staying off mountain. And good bus
service up the canyons to the resorts.



heh~
just browsing around today and figured i'd check in with this topic.
imho, summit county is for the birds. traffic going up the 70, coming down,
and at the resort while you're there. copper is the single most crowded
resort i've ever been to- and i grew up skiing/riding in the east. not to
mention that it doesn't snow in CO. ;-)

if you want the best, i suggest utah. snowbird is the cat's meow. a 'long
line' at the chairs at the bird is 15min and this rarely happens. the tram
is sometimes backed up, but the locals don't ride it on the busy days. and
the SNOW...well, if you've been, then ya know. if you haven't then....you
gotta try it to find out.

cheers from the wasatch 58" base~

--


jmed

"Jason Medeiros" wrote in message ...
Utah is another option with all the places around Salt Lake/ Park City.
Very
cheap places to stay if you don't mind staying off mountain. And good bus
service up the canyons to the resorts.



heh~
just browsing around today and figured i'd check in with this topic.
imho, summit county is for the birds. traffic going up the 70, coming down,
and at the resort while you're there. copper is the single most crowded
resort i've ever been to- and i grew up skiing/riding in the east. not to
mention that it doesn't snow in CO. ;-)



Traffic at the resort while you're there? Were they driving cars down
the trails? I've been to Summit many times and traffic has never
been an issue. You can fly into Denver from the east coast and be on
the trails in the afternoon. And the trails are so huge, I haven't
seen crowding being a real problem, certainly nothing compared to
places in the east like Killington, VT. And funny if it doesn't snow
in CO that Keystone and A-Basin are open already.




if you want the best, i suggest utah. snowbird is the cat's meow. a 'long
line' at the chairs at the bird is 15min and this rarely happens. the tram
is sometimes backed up, but the locals don't ride it on the busy days. and
the SNOW...well, if you've been, then ya know. if you haven't then....you
gotta try it to find out.

cheers from the wasatch 58" base~


For another view, check Transworld Snowboards 2004 Resort Guide. They
polled 10,000 readers to rate world snowboarding resorts. In the
overall world rankings, Breckenridge came in #3, Copper Mtn #5, Vail
#7. Snowbird earned an honorable mention.

The Summit County area has 3 of the top ten rated resorts in the
world, which sounds pretty good to me. I'm not suggesting that
Snowbird isn't a good choice too, but for all that Summit offers in
the way of great riding, I think to complain about traffic on an
interstate is silly.

for all that Summit offers in
the way of great riding, I think to complain about traffic on an
interstate is silly.

silly? maybe.
personally, the last thing i want when done with a day or weekend of skiing
is 'driving' in a line of SUVs and audis for 4h to get home.
i guess i'm spoiled. when you get used to no crowds, throngs of people tend
to grate on the nerves.
-and we're not even talking about the traffic ON_the_trail.

cheers~

--


jmed

~ Some day history will show that Bush saved the world...and that you and
many others were on the wrong side of leadership, vision, and victory. I
also expect liberalism to be dead by that point in time in the US.
- Buck The Trend
~