Plus du Monde

The unfortunate reality of this harsh ski season is that it's almost over, even as I sit here writing in late March. I have concrete plans for one more day on the hill, and I might get one or two more after that. So while this would normally be a post for May or June, I think it's a fair time to go ahead and recap the insanity that was this past ski season for me. I'm not going to recap every single ski day in this post, but all of the major/important trips.

Sunday River, Loon & Waterville Valley

Mostly due to the subpar early season conditions in Colorado, I decided in early December to start looking at alternative opportunities. I had the idea for the video about the East Coast lifts and decided that the trio of Sunday River, Loon and Waterville would be ideal to round out that video. As a huge bonus, they had all seen some exceptional early-season conditions. I flew in and out of Boston, and in only two days on the ground, got everything I needed from the three mountains for the target video, along with enough material for several others. The conditions were as good as expected, and despite being an exceptionally fast-paced trip, I had a great time. The groomers were hitting, there were no crowds, the weather was nearly perfect, and there was even a little bit of decent off-piste to be found. From this brief exploration, I definitely would like to return to Sunday River at some point. These were my first great days of the season and weren't even planned until just a week prior. As such, I still consider these to have been "bonus days" to a degree, but I couldn't be happier with the way it worked out.

Wolf Creek & Purgatory

I grew up going to Wolf Creek and Purgatory over New Year's with my family for many years, and we decided to run it back this season. This year was the second-worst we'd seen it. Not the single worst. Nonetheless, the snow coverage and quality at Purgatory was paltry. Wolf Creek was significantly better, but also significantly more crowded. These weren't my favorite 4 days (2 at each mountain) of the season, but it was good to get out and film mountains I hadn't (Purgy) and hadn't extensively (Wolf Creek) filmed in the past. And of course, it's always fun to spend time with family, especially when there's nothing better to do.

Peek'n Peak & Holiday Valley

This, believe it or not, was trip planned the furthest in advance out of any this season. Peek'n Peak was my father's childhood ski area, so we'd long wanted to go back and experience what it feels like now. To justify the trip, we added on Holiday Valley. I figured out the details of how to make the trip work, and for MLK weekend, we pulled off the third-most ridiculous trip of my season. Yes, flying from Colorado to ski Peek'n Peak was third. The skiing at both mountains was as good as can be asked for from those mountains over that weekend, and despite some slight crowding, they were some of my top days of the season. Each of these major trips had some sort of caveat -- for the spontaneous Maine/New Hampshire trip it was early-season terrain closures, and for Southern Colorado it was the low snow. However, the night skiing at Holiday Valley was just surreal, as I've never experienced such extensive night skiing in my life. There was a ton to take away from that weekend, but at the end of the day, it was a throwback ski day with my father to relive some childhood memories. And we did it by leaving the best ski state in the Union (Utah, sue me) to ski at a place most of you have never heard of.

Cloudmont

As if a spontaneous early-season east coast trip and MLK weekend in western New York weren't crazy enough, I decided that I needed to go even wilder for the month of February. I won't go super in-detail about the trip to Cloudmont here, as I cover it pretty extensively in the Alabama video. Nonetheless, it was skiing in Alabama. Can it get any better than that?

Telluride

For the last weekend of February, I had planned to skip class and drive out to Utah to experience the Deer Valley expansion. We all know quite well what happened with that. So instead, I decided that if I was going to drive a full day to go somewhere, I might as well do my best to finally finish off Colorado. Telluride was the last major resort I was missing, despite having skied there many seasons ago. This time, the goal was simple: ski as much of Telluride as possible in two days. And I'll tell you what: I skied the hell out of the mountain. I'm honestly not sure if 39,000 vertical feet followed by 42,000 the next day is a "good" stat or not. But what I do know is that despite my doubts, I covered the mountain extensively enough in those 2 days that I very well might be able to write the Insider's Guide. Never once in planning last fall did I imagine that I would ski enough of Telluride to even think about writing the IG. And yet there I was. The snow wasn't great, but I waited in a cumulative total of 10 minutes for all of the lifts I rode the entire weekend. The town was as charming as ever. For such a poor season, this trip was also a definite success. 

Les Trois Vallées

Over my university's spring break, I skied 5 and a half days at the world's largest ski resort. The result was 949 clips added to the footage database and a rediscovery of my love for Les Trois Vallées. I've been to the domain once before and had a blast despite subpar weather and snow conditions. This time around, I had excellent conditions and perfect weather all but one of the days (that one exception was the windiest day I've ever skied). Les Trois Vallées might not have the insane gnar of North America or even the perfect grooming you can get at places like Deer Valley, but there's just some sort of magic for me of navigating the world's largest ski area. After all, that's what I've built my entire livelihood around. It was an amazing experience, and I'm already looking forward to when I'll next get to go ski in the French Alps (most likely at Val d'Isère/Tignes). Nonetheless, this was my fourth flyaway trip of the season. As far as I can remember, the most I've ever done before this season was 2. This season went from zero to one hundred incredibly quickly, but Les Trois Vallées with the conditions we got was the perfect finish.

When I find a ski resort I truly love, I usually buy either a sweatshirt or a blanket that has the trail map on it. This season, I added two sweatshirts and one blanket. Take a guess as to from which mountains I bought souvenirs. 

Cloudmont must surely be the obvious one. (Sweatshirt)

Sunday River was my first truly "good" day of the season, so maybe their was impression bias. (Blanket)

Les Trois Vallées is one of my favorite places on Earth. (Sweatshirt from Les Menuires)

Those three items represent my ski season pretty well. Les Trois Vallées was the headliner trip, and it lived up to every expectation. Sunday River represents all of my east coast days and their spontaneity. And of course, one can't forget about Cloudmont, which simply represents the sheer insanity of this season. 

This channel has allowed me to do things I never could've in the past (Sunday River trip & Cloudmont trip are two good examples). So for the ability to have skied in Alabama, and for the ability to have escaped the Colorado heat, and for the ability to have flown across the country just to ride a few fancy lifts, I'd like to personally thank each and every one of you.

Talk again soon.