How do you go about deciding

[Boardingbuny]

Where you are going to go..

Pods you've just done an amazing trip, where did you do your research, what made you decide on the states.. How did you find decent accom etc etc...

How did you plan it all... Where to start

Im looking at our next big trip, wether to include the monstro and really dont know where to start looking

[Vet]

I picked a US region 'near' LAX and SFO that offers great deals, eg ski heavenly 'free' this spring if you buy a $329 season pass now for my next trip. Or the Squaw Valley pass 09/10 at $369. Or ski Kirkwood in late March-April and grab a $99 season pass, and the $99 bedsitter slopeside. Or wait til May and get the 6 pak if iits offerred again like past years - 6 days at an average $43 a day at upto 7 resorts. I bought a month of units around the lake too so accom is cheap. Everyone's different and on different budgets and different times they can get away.

I didn't do the 'drive around and find accom that night' trip.

[Podlettte]

Hey BB,

The US was decided before BH and I got together, he and his mate were going on a boys road trip because they were tired of skiing blue sky days with no fresh snow for weeks etc. then the girls came along for both of them which changed the bedding configuration a little

As far as choosing where to go - initially it was Canada fly into Vancouver, a week at whistler then roadtrip via revelstoke and fly out of either vancouver or SFO/LA. It was all fairly flexible, flights were expensive to Vancouver and V released sale fares to LAX, so we rejigged the trip, figured a week in park city either at the end or start and we'd play the rest by ear. So we jumped on the cheap tickets, but then V went stupid and had no planes, so we all decided the fare we'd spotted to SFO for roughly $200 cheaper was a better option, we could stay a few nights with a friend of mine in south lake tahoe, become accustomed to yanks and driving on the wrong side of the road then decide where to head from there.

It was all pretty organic and initially whistler was so 2 of us could do a skier improvement style course, as most US resorts don't offer that style of program, however it didn't work out that way but 1 in the group did the women's group lesson at Heavenly and got a lot from it.

As far as planning, it was a lot of talking with each other, utilising BH's and his mates knowledge of US resorts and saying yes or no. We had a couple of Not to miss places, some highly desirable places, 1 totally unexpected place and lots of researching weather as we went to decide where the next best spot was looking likely to be. we stayed 2-3 nights most places booking online via expedia.com or priceline.com and 1 week in park city.

For me it was all new and shiny, for the guys, they'd done some of it before with new bits thrown in, the roadtrip was new for all of us OS and something I highly recommend so long as you remain flexible and also allow yourselves time to spend in one spot at some point on the trip so you don't go loopy! (and don't drive across Nevada, sends you loopy! ).

We considered before we left that we might drive after skiing and find somewhere to stay, but we were honestly too shagged most of the time to have been able to concentrate on driving the distances we did to do that. Others might cope with it, but it would make for a very non relaxing trip.

For the US most places we stayed were Holiday Inn/Holiday inn express type places, which are like some of our 4 star hotels, but are called 2 star over there. I was "impressed" with the level of accommodation versus star rating versus price (via discount websites already mentioned).

It wasn't the cheapest way of doing it, and I would definitely do it again, though would do a few things differently. Fly into Salt lake city or reno and hire and return to there, or fly into canada and do that part of the world. Spend more time at one resort to get to know them better. The thing with following storms is that sometimes the best bits of the mountain are closed for various reasons so you don't get to ski it or see it.

[Podlettte]

oh and my mate in tahoe gave us lots of good tips, some we listened too others we didn't mostly due to time.

We hadn't considered Mammoth, but he said the storm that was coming in that we were looking at heading north, would hit mammoth hard (which is to the south). Local knowledge is a good thing.

also, the guys read the TGR forums alot (don't post, just read AFAIK) which provides heaps of information of resorts in north america, Trip reports, things not to do etc. they are fairly hard core and don't take much silly talk, so be warned if you choose to enter!

www.tetongravityresearch.com

[Vet]

Hey BB, how's $20 a day over 10 days on snow sound - Kirkwood is now selling the early bird $199 6-day per week season pass. (But Kwood has lots of steeps as well as lots of nice groomers).

[size="1"][ 25.03.2009, 10:18 AM: Message edited by: Vet ][/size]

[Boardingbuny]

sounds very nice vet, but how do i go about finding decent accom. How to get to kirkwood etc. Im hopeless at this stuff.

[Boardingbuny]

My assumption there is I would by the passes now and start booking accom now.. get in early get it cheap??

WIll check out the kirkwood website see what the conditions for that pass is.

Is kirkwood suitable for kids 41/2 by then.

Thanks for the ideas.

[SnoWhite]

For me deciding where to go isn't all about skiing. I love travelling, especially in countries where the culture is very different to here. Which is part of the reason my trips have been to Japan this year and two years before that to India and Kashmir. I've managed to combine my love of skiing with the travel thing.

Future trips might include Lebanon, Morocco and South America. If it's ever safe enough I'd love to go it Iran, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I have a friend living in Switzerland at the moment, so France and/or Italy could be next on the agenda based on that and also wanting to travel again in those two countries and possible Spain and Greece again as well.

At this stage I really don't have much desire to go to the US or Canada. If someone offered me a free trip, I'd be wanting to trade it for somewhere I think I'd enjoy more.

Finance also plays a small part, which is partly why I ended up in Japan instead of France and Italy.

[Altheau]

Things I would consider are

If it is snowing it's heart out, are you willing to drive?

Is there on snow accom (I think Kirkwood and Snowbasin did not have on snow, there are probably others as well)

Can you catch a bus from the nearest town?

Do the roads to said resort close in bad weather (ther road to kirkwood and sugar bowl closed while we were in Tahoe)

If you hire a car you are generaly not allowed to put chains on it.

Do you want to stay at one resort or move around (if you want to experiance lots of resorts in one area Salt Lake city has good variety in a reasonably small area. There are lots of resorts around tahoe as well but travel times can be a bit longer I think as they are a bit more spread out)

Are there any resorts you have to ski at before you die kinda things?

As for the kiddy, all the resorts we went to had at least a reasonable beginners area )
Resorts visited are

Heavenly (the instructor I had here was lovely and the 4 other instructors that I met at the womens day I attended were also lovely, If I was going to take my child to Tahoe and they were getting lessons etc I would consider here) Also has lots of nice groomers and fast lifts. Very easy to access if you stay in the town below as there is a gondala to the resort from the centre of town in cal so no need to stay at a casino, and accom was cheap

Mammoth , did not get to see to much, it is a massive resort and i am sure caters for eveyone, there is a bus from mammoth lakes town, as well as a gondala in town to the resort. Highly recommend not driving to the resort if the weather is snowy as the road in town was hell slippery to walk onafter snow.

Kirkwood , I personally did not ski here because I was sick at the time. I think the road to kirkwood would be scary on a snow day if you are not experiance with the conditions. there is lots of hard terrain here but there was still beginner through to expert. I am pretty sure there is a bus, but not positive and you might have had to book it.

Snowbasin is beautiful, lots of gondalas and such as well shich is nice. Reasonably easy drive even on a snow day, they cleared the road alot. No one snow accom, but Ogden is not to far away

Brian Head, great beginners resort, nice friendly atmosphere, small (but I enjoyed it)

Grand Targhee, Lovely resort, nice on snow accom, good reputation for snow school (I don't have personal experaince with that) well known for taking good care of kids. They had a great area set up for the kids when I was there which included tree sking and a little cat track. Staff here were nice also. Some of the local skiers had a poor attitude and were rude (this is a shame cause the resort is really nice)

Deer Valley, Not a bad resort, good facilities, lift placement is a bit all over the place, variety of terrain.

Park City, much like Deer valley, lift placement is better, only place we really experinace lift lines

Snowbird, they have a tunnel with a travelator through the mountain, need I say more? although I was not a huge fan of the mineral basin part. There are parts of chips run that have terrible cat tracks, I would say it was the hardest cat track I have ever experianced (so bad it encouraged me to use the black runs the cat track avoided, YAY one of my first black runs was at snowbird =] )not all the way just in places, so only for confident blue skiers IMHO

Powder Mountain, as a blue skier this resort was boring as all hell, locals where nice, facilities were average. On a powder day I have heard this is the place to be, back country access, helli and cat skiing are easy to access here (although heli skiing at least is not cheap)

Brighton, was not that great for me, lots of flat, not alot of the runs ran down the fall line, side hill kinda thing. BUT lots of terrain parks, so if you are into that . .

North Star, nice resort, nice facilities, there is a bus that has a standard run(you don't need to book it) from truckee

off the top of my head I think Squall had a bus also but you had to reserve it, Sugarbowl did also I think but it did not stop close to our hotel.

All of the above is of course just my opinion and I did not come across a resort that was bad.

Hope this helps, most of all don't stress and have fun

[size="1"][ 25.03.2009, 05:33 PM: Message edited by: Altheau ][/size]

[Podlettte]

Fantastic summary Altheau, and I agree with everything. Had forgotten how good the kids are looked/was at Targhee. BB I would seriously consider that over other resorts, it's a whole kids area off 1 chairlift with on and off piste areas, little mini terrain park, fun names for runs etc all orange fence off from the rest of the rabble, so ultra safe and comfortable place to learn.

As a plus side, it is reported to be the most reliable place for powder in north america. We were there on a good day, and it gets tracked out very very quickly, but was worth it.

One thing to think about is California, particularly tahoe is known for "Sierra cement" ie wet snow like we get here.