Ask away, Ray. Glad to have info useful to someone!
We're a different household. My wife isn't a skier, and she's very particular about her hotels. Yes, the Alpine Inn is quaint in ways, but the rooms are a bit.....utilitarian, and the Quicksilver and the Village Inn, they lack the quaintness. Not the kind of place to keep a non-skiing wife all that happy.
Now for me, focused on skiing hard, liking a quaint meal, looking to have a few rounds in a classic ski bar, and not caring how nice the room I ultimately crash in is, the Alpine Inn is perfect. Everything a skier could want, right at the base of the mountain. The Alpine Inn does connecting rooms that would be perfect for a family with kids who isn't looking for bells and whistles at their hotel. The Alpine Inn restaurant makes a mean Weiner Schnitzel a la Holstein, and the Snorting Elk Cellar is perennially on lists ofthe top ski bars in the country.
As for marked glades....there are none! Consider the whole hill a glade. For such an EXPANSIVE area there are only 57 marked "trails". However, many of those "trails" just run through an area, which will have a variety of terrain features, with a groomer running down the middle and a bowl, glades, cliffs, etc. all around you. It's an 'if you can see it you can ski it' kind of place. Its pretty much all pine forest, and if you see a stand you want to play in, go for it. Not like in the east here where there is a long, marked glade with an entrance and a exit.
The hill has plenty of long groomers on the bottom half that are perfect for cruising with kids, and the ability to venture into those other terrain feature just off the marked trail makes experimenting fun for all ages, although you do have to be careful where you turn and which way you go. Venture off the marked trail and turn left when you should have turned right and you may just find your self on some very steep, double black, glades areas with cliffs and other obstacles.
I was told it's a waste of money, but if you go there get FatMap and the premium upgrade. It shows what has to be a hundred plus lines within the resort, with a description (like if it's glades, cliffs, etc.) and pitch degree, so you really can target where you want to go and what you want to avoid.
Not sure I like the term Sidecountry anymore, because it tends to minimize the seriousness of high consequence terrain. It should be treated as Backcountry, even though it's within boundary and lift accessed. Especially out there. Right off the top of chair 6 you've got bowls with 40 plus degree terrain from the ridges. A traverse left brings you toward Southback, with the ability to drop into Hamburger Bowl in the resort proper. These areas (before you get to Southback) are safe, but tough, and a good place to introduce an very upper intermediate and better skier to above tree line bowl skiing that will really challenge their ability, while still being in the resort. The Northway area steps up the game, with lots of bowl skiing and places you can challenge a solid skier new to that terrain, but there are many places where you can zig when you would have zagged and anything but a very advanced skier could be in for a bad experience. Then there is Southback. A combination of hiking and traversing from the gates above Hamburger Bowl brings you to a series of bowls with steep chutes leading to wide open bowls. Lots of trees to dabble in as you get lower. It's more remote, requiring a traverse out, and definitely for very strong skiers, and something that should be treated like true BC, beacon, shovel, probe and all.
We REALLY need a proper roll eyes emoji!!
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