Park City, UT – With the advent of multi-resort season passes like Epic and Ikon, a whole host of skiers have hit the road in 2018-19, embarking upon life-changing road trips across North America to visit ski resorts that have held a place on their bucket lists for many, many years.
For those skiers who own an RV, or are willing to rent, this presents the perfect opportunity to load up and go with a motorhome or travel trailer. What they’ll find, however, is that there are precious few opportunities to camp near the slopes. A handful of ski resorts, including Oregon’s Mt. Bachelor and Snoqualmie in Washington State, allow slopeside overnight parking in one of their lots for true ski-in/ski-out accommodation. In most cases, however, skiers will find campgrounds near the resorts buried in snow and shuttered until spring.
Skiers and snowboarders traveling in an RV have therefore been forced to be creative, finding unique opportunities to legally camp overnight near their favorite mountains. One such opportunity exists in Jordanelle State Park, right outside of Park City, Utah and adjacent to the base of Deer Valley Resort. Although the park’s campgrounds remain closed for the winter, park officials allow RV travelers to dry camp in their marina parking lot for $16 per night, just two and a half miles from the base of Deer Valley’s Jordanelle Gondola.
As part of our sister project Grand Adventure, last month we took our RV up to Jordanelle to camp and ski the impeccably manicured slopes of Deer Valley:
What do you think? Would roadtripping in an RV be your perfect way to travel to ski resorts, or would you prefer a warm and cozy condo? Let us know in the comments section below!
There is an elephant in the room here. No one is more skilled at living in and operating an RV than author and former FTO admin Marc Guido. I have another close ski acquaintance Garry Klassen, who also takes months long RV trips across the country.
The bottom line is that neither of these people use their RV’s for long distance ski trips because trailers and winter driving are not a good mix.
The ski area in this feature was less than an hour’s drive from the author’s winter home in Salt Lake City, was for only one overnight plus one ski day, and I’m sure the time was chosen for when the roads were clean.