Getting ready to head out today to Mammoth for 3 days of skiing. The drive should take about 6 hours, but it is currently snowing there so it may take a bit longer. Looking forward to getting the ski season started.
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Have fun and drive safely!
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Snow! A good problem to have.
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Enjoy your family time. Hope the roads are all clear and you get a break from the rain for the drive.
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It was very snowy coming into Mammoth. We had our lasagna for dinner and D1 and SIL are trying to get GD to bed now.
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DS and family are returning from North Tahoe. Got routed around Donner but got to spend a bit more time with the family who were able to get their disabled son onto the mountain. Such a joy for them all.
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That’s great! Hope everybody gets home safely.
My 98 year old father spent almost 20 years as an Adaptive ski instructor. He really found it a rewarding experience. (Extra bonus - I think it made him a much better PT patient after he broke his hip. He was a very attentive listener/learner).
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Favulous!
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oh to ski in the West! Glad to hear CO is getting some snow. Just wrapped up a trip in NH, ice for days! We’re on the Indy Pass if anyone has heard of that one. About $600/season for 2 days at any resort worldwide on their list. They tend to be smaller, independently owned places. In NH we went to Cannon, Waterville Valley and Ragged - all within about 40 miles of each other so we stayed in the middle. We’ll go to CO in March to Loveland, Ski Cooper and either Sunlight or Granby Ranch. I wonder if Eldora is on that pass? No these are not the flashy places but we are a ski family & ski every weekend (we have a home ‘resort’ we regularly go to) and it’s a good way to keep it somewhat less $$. Used to do the Epic pass and really loved those resorts. When I lived in CO I still remember getting my $25 lift pass at King Soopers on the way up!
Question for the group - does anyone use heated gloves and if so, what brand? I’m constantly using hand warmer packets. Seems wasteful.
My DH has some heated gloves I got him. He says the gloves are big. He says maybe we should have gotten mittens.
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I must be older than you. When we were in college, you could get a day pass at Winter Park for $13, and when you parked (free), if you had 4 people in your car, they’d give you coupons for $1 off for carpooling. City of Denver owned Winter Park.
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You guys must be young. I used to get ski passes at King Soopers when I skied in Colorado though I don’t remember the price. But I do remember is when I was in high school I think it was, but I had a fit when the ski pass price went into the double digits.
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We don’t have heated gloves yet, but my H does love his heated socks. The pair of heated socks he has worn for 3 seasons did not work this past week on our trip to Mammoth. I guess he will have to order some new ones before we head to Big Sky to ski next month.
This is our 7th year skiing with an Ikon pass. Last year we did the Epic pass and tried to hit most of the resorts we had not been to on that pass. We live in Southern California and ski between 20-25 days a year so the pass is really worth it for us. We usually drive 6.5 hours to Mammoth in the Eastern Sierra 3-4 times a season. We also do one big road trip per season of 2 plus weeks and ski various Ikon pass resorts in the west. Big Bear is a resort in SoCal on the Ikon pass that is 2.5 hours from us. We don’t bother to ski there as it is much too crowded and the snow is not good.
D1, SIL and GD are moving to Connecticut (SIL is from there) this month and they will live about 20 minutes from a small ski resort. GD is only 3 months old, but this is where they will teach her to ski. D1 and SIL said they will probably wait until she is 3-4 before they bring her out west to ski. I guess H and I will be doing some ice skiing in the east since we will want to see GD skiing!
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For a few years in my youth near Kingston NY I enjoyed skiing cheaply at local Highmount (near Bellayre). Our town sponsored the bus, and discount tickets were $4. (Including $4 deal for my father who signed up to be one of the adult low key chaperones - I think the main responsibilities related to bulk ticket purchase using cash from the students, lunch break at assigned table, headcount before departure). He asked me and my sister to pay half, so $2 for a day on the slope with friends. Priceless memories.
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@twoinanddone yes I never remember paying for parking at WP and of course the base lodge was just the one building with nothing else. WP/MJ is my favorite place to go to this day!
@showmom858 I may have to try heated socks as well. Hands are usually the bigger issue. So many places in the NE to ski that are close together. If you don’t have a season pass to 1 place, it makes the Indy Pass a great option to sample.
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Ski patrolers back to work at Telluride.
Someone I was speaking to this week said that those jobs aren’t meant to be careers so they shouldn’t be paid more than minimum wage! So wrong. My brother was a Pro Patrol (not a volunteer) for more than 40 years. He was a certified EMT and certified in avalanche control and could use explosives to set off avalanches. Sorry, I don’t want a 19 year old volunteer doing that, or even rescuing someone having a heart attack or who has skied into a tree and must be air lifted to a trauma hospital. Those ARE jobs for professionals, and professionals should be paid as professionals. If the owner of Telluride is charging $200 for a ticket, he can pay his professionals.
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Haven’t been to Winter Park in quite a while. My last memory is coming down the road from Winter Park and stopping at a vendor on the side of the road selling different animal jerky. My kids love it. Not me 
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We have skied at Winter Park 3 times on our Ikon passes. We like the paid parking as it is usually not full and we can take the cabriolet from that lot to the resort. Of course when we were young with no money we would never pay for parking!
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Way back in the day when we would go to Beaver Creek we would park for free at arrowhead in a dirt lot and go for hot chocolate in the little yurt type building and then ski our way all the way over to the far side of Beaver Creek and then work our way back. Times have changed.
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