Best ski safari week trip.

What is the best combination ski trip out there within a period of 7 days?

I know a couple good combo in the East, but I only imagine the ones in the West.

In the East:

Smuggs-Stowe-MRG-Sugarbush would probably tops in my book.

In Europe:

It's pretty hard, areas are so vast requiring a couple days to really get to know them.

In the West:

What about the West? I done Jasper-Louise-Sunshine-Norquay-Fortress(lost).

Lake Tahoe areas? Which ones? Squaw-Alpine-Sugar bowl-Heavenly?

The Utah areas?

Does it look like i'm thinking ski trip... :shock:

Utah is easiest. You just park yourself in SLC and commute 30-45 minutes one way to the 4 Cottonwood areas and the 3 Park City areas. Snowbasin is an hour, Powder Mt. 1/2 hour past Snowbasin.

Tahoe works similarly within North or South Shore. Staying one shore and skiing the other is a 1+ hour drive if roads are clean and traffic moderate. That means don't try it in bad weather or on peak weekends/holidays. So I recommend at Tahoe sleeping half the week north and half the week south. You can combine with Mammoth 3 hours away, but that means more than a week or skiing just a few of the Tahoe areas.

Colorado: Most straightforward is Summit County + Vail/Beaver Creek. Avoid peak times. There's plenty of good skiing, though not much super steep and ambience is not what most FTO'ers seem to like. From Eagle airport, combine Aspen with Vail/Beaver Creek. Less crowded but bring $$$ to get the most of the experience. Southwestern Colorado: Fly to Montrose or Durango, ski Durango, Telluride, Silverton (last for altitude acclimitization, you're hiking above 12,000 ft.). Wolf Creek is 2 hours from Durango, Crested Butte is 2+ hours from Montrose.

Combining Jackson/Targhee with Big Sky/Bridger would take more than week IMHO. Expensive airports, especially if you try to fly in one and out the other.

I've done the "Calgary loop" for a week twice: Castle/Fernie, Panorama, Banff/Lake Louise. Kicking Horse adds another 2 hours driving to that trip. Fernie can be approached from the U.S. side also. Easiest is Big Mountain, 2 hours south. Spokane is a cheaper airport, 5 hours away with Schweitzer on the road in between. I did that trip in 1997 as a triangle, hitting Red and Whitewater also.

Okanagan (Apex, Big White, Silver Star) plus Sun Peaks is more compact than the Calgary loop or Spokane triangle, but a marathon if you try to add anything else (Red, etc.) in.

I'm sure there will be comments about options I've left out. Everyone has their own tolerance for how much driving they want to do in a week of skiing. The ones I mention are generally ones I've done myself with some success, but most skiers do not want to put in as much road time/hotel switching on a one-week trip as even the Calgary loop for example.

Agree on Europe that any number of areas are huge enough to keep you busy for a week. But distances are compact, and if the next valley over got a big dump, I'd be tempted to hop in the car and go after it.

Tony Crocker":1vx3og3y said:

Combining Jackson/Targhee with Big Sky/Bridger would take more than week IMHO. Expensive airports, especially if you try to fly in one and out the other.

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I've done it, and the cost of flying NW Airlines into Bozeman wasn't that bad -- +/- $450 round-trip from Tampa IIRC. But as Tony hints at, we spent 10 days or so doing a Big Sky->Jackson->Targhee->Bridger->Red Mountain->Bridger odyssey. That wasn't with a family in tow, either, just two gung-ho mid-30s buds with a rental car with unlimited mileage (and one of us with waaaaaay too many funk CDs for the drive! :roll: ).

Tony Crocker":1vx3og3y said:

I've done the "Calgary loop" for a week twice: Castle/Fernie, Panorama, Banff/Lake Louise. Kicking Horse adds another 2 hours driving to that trip.

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I've done that one flying into and out of Calgary, in a Sunshine->Louise->Panorama->Fernie->Castle loop. It was preceded with a day at White Tooth the day that it became Kicking Horse, but that involved a quick-hop flight aboard a tiny twin-engine plane from Calgary to Golden, then back to Calgary in the afternoon after skiing to start on our actual loop odyssey outlined above.

BTW, the scenery from that quick-hop flight from Calgary to Golden was nothing short of stunning:



We gained just enough altitude to barely squeak over the Continental Divide before dropping like a rock into the Columbia River Trench.

That's a really great summary Tony. I'm not going to comment on what my preferences would be, but again, everyone' s differenct, and Tony's list is really complete. Can't think of anything I'd add.
Patrick's right on the money with his east list too.

Marc: Did you really go to Red Mt. (3 hours north of Spokane) as part of the Bozeman trip? I would guess you went to Red Lodge, but even that's a schlep if I have Montana's geography right. J. Spin could probably construct an interesting Montana itinerary, but the distances are big.

Sorry, my bad - I meant to type Red Lodge. And yes, it was a bit of a schlep (I'm guessing that I may be the only Utah resident able to use "schlep" in a sentence ). We got our money worth out of the rental car, racking up well north of 1,000 miles on its odometer. I don't know how we got so lucky but Enterprise in Bozeman had a 4WD Subaru Forester that they gave us.

Tony Crocker":2pm7u35k said:

Combining Jackson/Targhee with Big Sky/Bridger would take more than week IMHO. Expensive airports, especially if you try to fly in one and out the other.
(...)
I've done the "Calgary loop" for a week twice: Castle/Fernie, Panorama, Banff/Lake Louise. Kicking Horse adds another 2 hours driving to that trip. Okanagan (Apex, Big White, Silver Star) plus Sun Peaks is more compact than the Calgary loop or Spokane triangle, but a marathon if you try to add anything else (Red, etc.) in.

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I guess the first one would be perfect when flying on points.

The Calgary loop is probably Canada's best (more than 2 areas in a relative short distance between each order), especially when adding KHorse.

Admin":2pm7u35k said:

We got our money worth out of the rental car, racking up well north of 1,000 miles on its odometer.

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At least you got to ski more than one areas with that milleage. :lol: I did 1,200 miles to ski Mammoth alone. :wink: Yes, I did a few same detours.

Jonny D":2pm7u35k said:

Patrick's right on the money with his east list too.

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That's really probably the best logical skiing combo in the East. Who can probably pick and choose from that list by adding Jay, Cannon or Kmart, BUT those areas (Smuggs, Stowe, MRG, Sugarbush) are the most and best logical ones.

Much better than my logic on a 4 days Easter weekend 2001.
Friday: Ottawa-Whiteface(ski)-Montreal
Sat: Montreal-Ste-Anne(ski)
Sun: Ste-Anne-Massif (ski) -Montreal
Mon: Montreal-Glen(ski solo)-Montreal-Ottawa

Or this winter's:
Sunday night drive to Montreal
Monday drive at -25c to Ste-Anne then toward Bromont (Townships) in snow for sleeping at a friend's house.
Tuesday morning: Drove past Sutton, Jay, Stowe to reach MRG tehn back to Bromont to pick up my car then leave for Ottawa.

Best Canadian combo:
Sutton-Orford-Owl's Head-Jay (ok, Canadian owned combo). Unfortunately Glen is still dead.

Ste-Anne-Massif is pretty good, but have to find some orders to add to that list. Haven't been back to Stoneham in the last 12 years so my opinion probably doesn't apply anymore. Never been to Grand Fonds and Edouard is much further, Massif du Sud is on the south shore.

I totally forgot the ultimate 50 ski areas in 50 days trip 4 guys did as a fundraiser a couple years ago. Started included BC/Alberta and moved south from there.

They had a website (the story was in Ski Canada) and it included their itinerary. Unfortunately I don't have that list.

Southern Colorado- Telluride, Purgatory (Durango), Silverton Mountain (Plan to ride it this year for the first time) and Wolf Creek! You could do three from Durango with less than an hour drive each day. And since telluride has turned into yuppy transplant hell, you could just skip it all together. Nice mountain though! :twisted:

You must have quite a performance vehicle (and amnesty from the local authorities) to get from Durango to Wolf Creek in less than an hour. But it's still worthy of a visit on the SW Colorado road trip.

You must have quite a performance vehicle (and amnesty from the local authorities)

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A four cylinder 2.5 liter jeep wrangler named El Jefe! And as long as your not sporting texas plates the state troopers are usually pretty kind! lol, Actually I always calculate to pagosa and forget the extra half hour to the mountain. I have had more than one friend return from some secret spot I told them about and complain that it was way further than I said! When you grow up in BFE everywhere is just a half hour away!

I don't know how we got so lucky but Enterprise in Bozeman had a 4WD Subaru Forester that they gave us.

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Bozeman is the #1 seller of Subaru's in the U.S. i don't know if this had anything to do with it, but thought i'd share that fun fact.

A great Montana ski trip would be to fly into Bozeman and head north about 2 hours, to Showdown Ski area (http://showdownmontana.com) in Neihart, MT (open Wed.-Sun. and one of the most reliable snowpacks in the state), head back to Bozeman and ski Bridger Bowl (http://bridgerbowl.com) a couple of days and then drive an hour south and ski Big Sky and Moonlight Basin (http://bigskyresort.com).

Not a whole lot of driving and you get to experience the full spectrum of Montana skiing.

Showdown has long been on my "list."