Spring Break Ski Trip-need suggestions

Parent Cafe
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<p>Whistler has such a range of different types of accomodation and probably with varying costs. It’s truly a great place to ski, if you’re able to swing it. Good variety in the difficulty of runs, snow should be perfect at that time, absolutely beautiful village, great shopping and eating, and the drive from Vancouver to Whistler is one of the most spectacular I’ve seen.</p>

<p>The difference in the Canadian $ is smaller than it’s been in years, although it should still help you out a bit. March break is that week in many Canadian provinces and Whistler is a very popular destination for Ontario skiers, too, so that may cause difficulty in getting reservations. </p>

<p>And yes, it’s true, Canada is civilized and allows young adults who can vote, live independently away at college, or be sent off to Iraq to fight for their country, to drink a beer or a glass of wine legally (some provinces are 18 and some 19, B.C. being one of the latter.) :)</p>

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<p>I second Park City, Snobird, Alta. You can’t beat the snow in those canyons and the easy in and out from SLC.</p>

<p>Whistler is vast and I love Vancouver–but Utah is still our favorite ski spot. (Having leanred at 35, I ski like a stiff Ken doll, back and forth across the slope. Rather unpleasant thing to behold. H skis like a bunny, Ss not far behind him).</p>

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<p>You guys are the greatest! Thanks for all the tips and suggestions. I will stick to going slow on intermediate slopes while my kids and hubby do the double diamonds. My days of praying while I try to follow them are over- ah the bliss of being 50! I’m turning all this info over to my husband to see what he comes up with. I am just excited over everyone being together and the kids being so exhausted come night time that they will hang with us some !</p>

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<p>Driver, you are so right! BC (that’s Before College, folks) we would go to Steamboat every year as a family, from S1 being 3 years old, on. I really, really miss it. Just to breathe the high altitude dry cold air. Sigh.</p>

<p>BTW, for those of you susceptible to altitude stress/sickness, here are some tips for ski trips. First, plan to ski Day 1, Day 2, Day three off. You will feel much better Day 4. Second, before traveling from the east coast, move your eating schedule forward 2 hours for a few days. Then, when you go, double your water consumption (it’s very dry in the Rockies), and take something like Tylenol PM at bedtime to help sleep through the night.</p>

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<p>Wyogal: for some of us, even your helpful suggestions don’t do the trick above a certain altitude–for me, it’s become impossible to go above 10000 feet without nausea and headache, even for a brief trip, and sleeping above 8000 feet is just too hard on my body after a few days.</p>

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<p>Well, dmd77, I tried to help, but what can I say? I positively wilt (nausea, headache, and rash) in hot weather, and here I am stuck in Baltimore in the summers. I promise not to drag you to Steamboat if you promise not to kidnap me to Costa Rica…LOL!</p>

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<p>Wyogal: actually, I’m fine at Steamboat (it’s just low enough at the base)–Grand Targhee did me in. </p>

<p>You have my complete and total sympathy with Baltimore in the summers… except that I remember the Eastern Shore with great fondness. The only thing I’ve found that helps with east coast summer humidity is… air conditioning. Lots of air conditioning.</p>

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<p>Our favorite: Telluride - the BEST place to ski - absolutely devoid of crowds. We get a package in Ouray (1 hour drive away) that covers a room in the St. Elmo hotel, half-price ski tickets at Telluride, phenomenal breakfasts and a meal at their Bon Ton (Italian) restaurant. Plus, hot springs tickets. The lack of people at Telluride most of the season makes you wonder how they stay in business. Of course staying in Telluride itself would be MUCH more convienient.</p>

<p>Second favorite: Crested Butte. To save money, we stay in the Nordic Inn (adequate, but nothing to write home about) - a short walk away from the lifts. </p>

<p>Least favorite (by far): Breckenridge. Good skiing, but the lift lines near the bottom take away any pleasure in the day. Forty-five minutes in one lift line??? Not my idea of a good time.</p>

<p>Vail: too expensive for us.</p>

<p>Aspen: double-dittoes on the expensive side.</p>

<p>We have passes this year for Keystone. It’s a bit on the crowded side, but has a lot of variety and the passes were cheap (4 times at Keystone for $89). Normal price is like $65 per day.</p>

<p>Copper Mountain is OK - the condos there are decently priced and the skiing is pretty good.</p>

<p>Steamboat has a LOT of people who love the place, but for some reason we’ve never skiied there.</p>

<p>Winter Park is fun, decent sized and prices should be better there.</p>

<p>Last year we had a BLAST skiing at some of the tiny little places (Sunlight, Wolf Creek, Monarch, and several others). But we were very lucky with hitting the right snow days.</p>

<p>Anyway, they all sound good to me (except for Breckenridge).</p>

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<p>Our family is big on Colorado,Utah and Wyoming skiing. We actually have property (land only) in Colorado and H and I are planning our retirement (as soon as I get a couple more years of income to afford S…).
We feel Crested Butte offers the best bang for the buck. We love it summer and winter. Lodging at all levels is available and you can fly direct to Gunnison.
We also like Grand Targhee- the skiing is awesome (conditions seem to always be great) and it is a low-key resort. You fly to Jackson or you can drive up from Salt Lake (takes about 5 hours but sometimes it is a lot cheaper to fly to Salt Lake).</p>

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<p>We will check out Crested Butte, thanks. Right now Jackson Hole is the main contendor. It is a place my husband has always wanted to ski, we are finding some barely affordable places but air fare is high. We will check out the option of driving from Salt Lake. We love Telluride but have gone there a lot. The kids are not as excited because of that. I love it there because you park your car and then never need it the whole week and the food is great . My S has all his friends taking trips spring break trying to get him to go with them so we want to entice him, I suspect it will be the last spring break we will be able to do this. It will be fun to explore a new place that none of us has ever been to. I will have to pull up those sites on warm clothes now as my Arizona blood has gotten pretty thin over the years and I am cold when it is 65!</p>

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<p>I had just written you a loooong response with tons of tips but my computer froze! I’ll try to summarize. We’ve taken a family ski week out west almost every year for the past 20 yrs, and have been to lots of places. We took a WONDERFUL and very affordable trip last spring break with our family of 4 plus 2-4 of my older s’s college friends (2 stayed 4 days, 2 stayed 2 days)- Best deal was at Breckenridge. You can get package lift tix and ski Vail/Beaver Creek/Keystone and A- Basin with Breck tix. Best deals on lodging, no matter where you stay, can be found on <a href=“http://www.VRBO.com%5B/url%5D”>www.VRBO.com</a> (vacation rentals by owner). We had a gorgeous 1 yr old townhouse, 4BR 3 BA (slept 10) with full washer-dryer, garage, hot-tub, 2 jacuzzi tubs, 2 fireplaces, great location near town and the slopes for about $250/night! And it was spring break week!! You can get discount lift tix from King Soopers markets, the Denver discount coupon books (order one online if you don’t have a friend in Denver who can send you coupons) or through the military, if someone in your immediate family has a military connection. My husband’s cousin owns and rents out a 3 br condo at Vail if you still prefer Vail, but it will be more expensive than Breck or Keystone. Keystone has night skiing, which is fun. Breck has a great town with lots to do at night. While I,too, love Steamboat, its not as easy to get to, and flights directly into Hayden can be expensive. Its cheaper to fly to Denver and rent a car. The drive isn’t bad. Copper is a good idea as well. They’ve really added to the stores and restaurants at the base of the mtn.</p>

<p>Another idea is to ski in Utah. Most affordable is the Alta/Snowbird area, but there isnt as much to do as in Park City. However, the prices are quite different. PM me and I’ll give you lots of links to coupons on line and discount deals!</p>

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<p>I forgot to tell you about another great website. <a href=“http://www.skicoupons.com%5B/url%5D”>www.skicoupons.com</a> You can pull up deals for any place. If you go to Jackson Hole, you’ll have to decide if you want to stay in Teton Village, by the slopes, or stay closer to town. Its been a while, so I forget the exact layout, and I am sure it’s grown a lot, but when we went, we stayed at Snow King and could then walk to town at night (we hit some nice restaurants, but you might also enjoy the Silver Dollar Bar-- its a classic). We took the shuttle to Jackson Hole, but could then get in some extra skiing at Snow King right behind the Hotel (and ran into, almost literally, a couple of moose back there!) If you stay at Jackson Hole (Teton Village) you’ll probably hang at the Mangy Moose. We didn’t gat around the mtn to Grand Targhee, so I’ll have to defer to momofwildchild for that one. One thing about the airport at Jackson Hole-- its gorgeous but hair-raising. That’s where the Walmart heir lost his life last yr. You fly in between 2 mtn ranges-- right over the elk preserves and its gorgeous, but scary. It is also usually pretty pricey to fly into the airport at Jackson Hole.
Anyway, think about what you want to be able to do at night. We wanted the “kids” to have some flexibility to come and go to do fun stuff in town, so we chose Breck because the slopes and the town are so close. We got such great deals on the whole trip, including ski and snowboard rentals, that a couple of our son’s college friends had enough extra cash to treat themselves to a massage one night!!! I stayed home and cooked dinner for 8 while they went off for a massage!!! What was I thinking??</p>

<p>Well, it was a wonderful trip (until younger son broke his collarbone :frowning: ). The college kids are already talking about planning anothe ski trip this year and asking me to help them find deals!</p>

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<p>I wanted to thank everyone again for all the wonderful advice and to share that we have booked our trip to Jackson Hole. We found an extremely reasonable 2 bdrm condo through vacation rental by owner and found decent flights into Jackson. I am so excited, we have always wanted to explore the area!</p>

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<p>Great!! Have a wonderful trip!! Glad VRBO worked out. We’ve always had great luck with them. Don’t forget the coupons.com link for discount coupons for lift tickets and rentals. I’m jealous!!!</p>

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<p>I will use VRBO a lot more now jym, great site, our 2 bdrm condo is 150 per night , walk to lifts! The coupon site is not yet updated for this ski season but I e-mailed them and hopefully they will have something for either rentals or lift tickets. Thanks again!</p>

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<p>"our 2 bdrm condo is 150 per night "</p>

<p>That is astounding.</p>

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<p>

Yup. Its a great website. We have found wonderful deals, dealt with wonderful people and have never been disappointed. Only once was a condo not quite as nice as had been described (that was at Winter Park) but it wasn’t a big deal. </p>

<p>Arizonamam-
Most ski people are pretty laid back and will probably take last year’s coupons for rentals and such this year. If you are wanting lift ticket deals, yes, you’ll need this year’s prices and deals.</p>

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<p>I would think you could beat that at Jackson Hole. They actually have more tourist in the summer months, so motel rooms are cheaper in winter. Of course, staying on the hill is going to be more expensive. I still have my JH telephone directories and Lindsey may have some suggestions. There are three ski areas there accessable on one ticket I believe.</p>

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<p>Bandit-
$150/night for a nice 2 BR condo walkable to the slopes during spring break week is a great deal. Anything cheaper and Arizonamom would probably be sharing a room with a moose or something.</p>

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<p>I missed your post. I was looking at the $800 a night stuff up top. On the other hand, moose are warm…When D was in elementary school in JH, she would call me to complain that she couldn’t go out after school because of the moose in the yard.</p>