Originally Posted By: Virtus_Probi
Originally Posted By: edyvw
I personally avoid those high priced areas and stick to Keystone, sometimes Breck but most favorite is A-Basin. Cheap beer, very good food (better then Vail resorts) and not too many rich spoiled people. No hotels, just two bars. I work mostly from home, no work days, so can hit twice a week or more.
Now baby is here, so hopefully I hit 10 times. This friday will be first time this year.
High priced is right! We were also amazed at the lack of free areas to change and leave your stuff while skiing, although A-Basin was more "East Coast" in that respect. All those people changing into their ski boots in their car at Vail or wherever and then trudging a long way to a lift...we always managed to find someplace to stow our stuff, even bribed somebody at a ski school under the table to hide our stuff away while we skied. Usually there were lockers for rent somewhere, but they were often tiny and in terrible locations. At home, we just change in a big, open lodge and stick our snow boots and bag in a free cubby...
The skiing was generally quite worth the hassle out West, though...it was snowing so hard at A-Basin the day we were there that I didn't get a feel for the place, took a lift up to someplace fairly high and my daughter basically disappeared from my view the moment we got off the chair. We ended up retreating to the trees lower down and still had a really fun day. We were comped passes by a former neighbor and bought her lunch to return the favor, the food was quite good. Had an epic day at Keystone, my most vivid memories are of a "moderate" glade trail that was recommended by a gondola companion at Aspen that turned out to be quite the bear and of catching unexpected air at speed on a steep groomed trail...I'm sure it was really quite brief, but it felt like several seconds to me. My daughter was very proud of me not eating snow on that one!
Haven't made it to Breck yet, it's sort of like Killington in being a "big" place (the latter is big for the East) that nobody I know ever actually skis. It's kind of weird for both, seems like they should be great but people always grumble about hearing from somebody who heard from somebody that they had no fun there...
Vail is great to ski, but no local will pay $25 for parking. That is why you see people changing on parking because locals have serious issue with the way Vail runs that place. They completely cut off regular people. So locals park by some hotels, and parkings outside Vail and take free shuttles. Vail purposely does not want locals, because locals do not spend money except on beer. Even when weed was legalized, one of the biggest push back was from Aspen, Breck, Vail, and it does not have to do anything with weed per se, but they do not want that clientele to visit. They prefer cocaine users
Breck has highest ski lift in the U.S., Imperial bowl, and A-Basin is just bit lower as second highest in the U.S. A Basin is not big, but it has second steepest run in the U.S. You need several beers for that run
. One thing about A-Basin is to get out before 6pm, after that State troopers setp up check points. That is place where you always get hammered skiing.
There are other local runs., Monarch is purely local, but more to the south and it is not that steep and season not long like central mountains.
Wolf Creek is a gem, but it is far south. Wolf Creek season is short too, BUT if it is El Nino year or there is lot's of moisture coming from AZ and NM, holy s.... Last year I think they got like 100 inches in three days.
We went from m1 ESp to skiing. But to go back to topic, M1 5W30 ESP starts really good in temperatures up there
