Western skiing

US skier visits rocket to a new record, while A-Basin closes with powder

Colorado's Arapahoe Basin on June 9--the day after closing.

Skiers who took the time to drive to Colorado's Arapahoe Basin on Sunday had a powder day to close out their ski season. Yes, it had snowed a couple of inches the night before at the higher elevations around the Continental Divide, which the ski area straddles.

A-Basin was the first to open for the 2007-2008 season on October 10, 2007, and the last to close.

Sounds like American ski resorts had a great year all around. The National Ski Areas Association reported earlier this month that...[Read more]

Wednesday, June 11, 2008 No Comments Filed in: Alpine skiing, Spring skiing, Western skiing

Mountains and glaciers and lakes, oh my!

I'm getting a Rocky Mountain high!

As I pack to make a short family visit to Colorado, I'm daydreaming of snow-capped peaks and blue skies. The Rocky Mountains are in a league of their own and I can't wait to see them again.

I stumbled across this interesting photo site recently at www.archives.gov/research/ansel-adams/. It's a National Archives site that shares some of Ansel Adams' photos of our national parks in the 1930s and 1940s.

Apparently, the US government commissioned Adams to document the parks, but World War...[Read more]

Friday, May 30, 2008 No Comments Filed in: Spring skiing, Western skiing, Winter photography

Super Saturday skiing at Solitude in Utah

Solitude, a 50-year-old ski resort in Utah's Big Cottonwood Canyon, is billed as a best-kept-secret kind of ski area. For this reason, we decided to ski Solitude on our last day of our trip because it fell on a Saturday. We figured this was a good plan because droves of skiers from Salt Lake City (only 45 minutes from the slopes) could be hitting the larger resorts in the area.

I'm not saying that Solitude is small, but it's just more manageable and you are able to explore much of the mountain...[Read more]

Monday, March 10, 2008 No Comments Filed in: Alpine skiing, Western skiing

Lovin' high-altitude skiing (not boarding) at Alta, Utah

Wow! This place has got to be one of the most scenic places to ski anywhere. Alta ski area in Utah is perched high in the Wasatch Range and it seemed that in every direction you get a view of a high peak. No wonder my seventh-grade teacher Mr. Tewksbury raved about this place.

Thursday was our first bluebird day during our Utah ski trip and we spent it on Alta's slopes. The Skimeister and I enjoyed left-over powder plus about five inches of new snow. Not too shabby, eh?

Here's the catch: The...[Read more]

Friday, March 7, 2008 1 Comment Filed in: Alpine skiing, Western skiing

Brighton ski day with some snow, sun, steeps and glades

Today we spent the day exploring Brighton ski resort in Utah. We were skiing on a little bit of fresh snow from the day and night before, and a whole lot of base from an above-average season for Utah ski resorts.

The weather threw a little sun our way, in between clouds and snow squalls. The Skimeister and I took the opportunity to first check out the new Milly Express lift on the south side of the resort, and we ended up skiing off of every lift except for the bunny slope.

Mt. Millicent...[Read more]

Wednesday, March 5, 2008 No Comments Filed in: Alpine skiing, Food, coffee & aprés, Western skiing

Snow and wind at Snowbird, Utah

Snowbird, Utah

Well the Skimaven has taken a field trip to Utah. Yup, a long way from Vermont. Now I'm skiing at 9 to 11,000 feet instead of 2 to 3,000. I can feel it when I bend over to buckle my boots!

The Skimeister and I started our Utah ski trip with Snowbird today. We took the tram right off the bat to get to the top of the mountain. We did laps in Mineral Basin all morning, enjoying powdery conditions in most places. This part of the resort is on the back side and it features wide, open slopes and a...[Read more]

Tuesday, March 4, 2008 No Comments Filed in: Alpine skiing, Western skiing

Snow envy

Snorkeling at the Beav'

If those twits at Heavenly, Vail and Beaver Creek send me one more e-mail ...

Their multimillion-dollar marketing machine keeps sending me mouth-watering photos of the three to 10 feet (that is not a typo) of snow that has piled up on their totally fabulous resorts in the last week. A photo in a Beaver Creek, Colo., e-mail even showed a skier (or what you could see of him) with a snorkel.

Please don't laugh, it just encourages them.

Normally, this would not phase me, but we've been...[Read more]

Friday, January 11, 2008 No Comments Filed in: Alpine skiing, Bolton Valley, Burke, Catamount, Craftsbury, Cross-country skiing, Jay Peak, Mad River Glen, Stowe, Western skiing

They're skiing out west

Ah, skiing at Solitude looks lovely!

Nothing like checking out western Web cams to get you thinking about winter. Arapahoe Basin in Colorado fired up its lifts for customers on October 10. Yeah, that's early. They say it's their earliest opening ever. Looks like they beat Loveland again this year.

My husband and I have been considering where we'd like to go for our western trip this year. We typically go for a one- to two-week trip each winter. We've just about settled on Salt Lake City and the the ski areas that are within...[Read more]

Thursday, November 1, 2007 1 Comment Filed in: Western skiing


 

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