Valdez, Alaska: April 14-19, 2024

[ChrisC]

If you can't smile and have fun with 4-5 feet of new snow and blue skies in the Alaskan Chugach, along with a 25/30-year lead guide who has many Valdez first descents, you need to find a new sport.

We were also lucky to have a tail guide (guide-in-training) since our group was only three, so there was room.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Yes, it was! I don't want to go back to Valdez because I will not improve my experience compared to this last trip. Besides, after 3x, it's time to move on to something else interesting besides Alaska in ski-dom.

Typically, when I have an A or A+ experience, I want to lock it in my memory at the moment and not try to improve upon it or relive it.

This is why I believe ChrisC will get to that 400 ski area mark.

I think there is context in making revisit decisions. Everyone knows Alaska is a crapshoot for down days. But that 2007 Alyeska/CPG trip was so good I went back twice all on my own dime before giving up. I would have been crazy not to go for that NASJA/media deal in 2011.

As I just mentioned in the 25/26 plans thread, my first remote lodge Canada cat/heli trips were so good I was hooked. Still, I tried different places over the ensuing decade+. But once I found Mustang I had fairly high confidence that the A or A+ experience was repeatable, and indeed that was the case for 9 out 10, and the other one was still A-.

In the Alps our mindset has been strongly towards skiing new places. Nonetheless there's still a moderately short list of places where I'd return.