vail jan 22 to 28

just returned from vail. skied 6 straight days, a record for me. it snowed about 20 inches the week prior to arrival. while we were there it snowed 9 inches, 6 inches, and 13 inches!!!!. the front side is huge, about 1600 acres. that is about 5-6 of your largest east coast favorites. the backside (bowls) are another 3600 acres. people appear to prefer the piste; the wood were empty. i skied alone in the woods run after run in virgin snow. on sat, the last day with huge crowds (about 15,000), i scored unbroken lines until i quit from exhaustion at 3 pm. got some great factoids from someone who works in vail managment. e.g. family of four spends 20k for 7 days; avg income of vail skier is 450k/beaver creek is over 1 million; up to 19k seasonal employees-most making about 10 bucks/hr. what they call ice out here is laughable. their "ice" is what we consider "good carvable conditions". my favorite run, especially on the big pow day was under chair 11 which reminded me of the darkside except it was about 10x as long. i skied on rossi 3 which have a 98 waist. they were great for every day but the big pow day. on that day, all the regulars were skiing on boards which looked like planks of warped barn siding. it's funny what locals consider good. generally, it takes about a foot of snow for them to ski. all of us easterners are ecstatic with 3 inches on hard pack. anyway, i had a great time. i'm still praying for winter back home. i remember the valentine storm of 2007. things were bleak, very bleak until that storm. remember, history repeats itself.

history does repeat!  great stoke!

frk wrote

family of four spends 20k for 7 days

for that price i can stay at the Ritz Carlton in St Moritz...

To ski and stay at Mt Bachelor cost me 2k and that includes food..
 

frk wrote

 family of four spends 20k for 7 days

 Yikes!  Vail does seem to be ridiculously expensive compared to other ski resorts.  I was really hoping to plan a trip there this year, but I couldn't stomach the cost of lodging. We are going to Breckenridge instead, for about half of what I would have spent for something comparable at Vail.  Even Beaver Creek is a bargain compared to Vail.  (Although in my limited experience, nothing compares to Vail!) I'm still hoping to go back someday.  I'm glad that they are getting some snow. It makes me hopeful for our trip in April.

i spent about 1700 dollars for my ski week at vail. i traveled with 3 friends and we shared costs on car, housing, and food. we shopped local and made our own meals. however, we met plenty of people who were staying at vail for weeks and months. vail, like most resorts, provides almost endless opportunities for the consumer to part with their money. although the walk-up ticket price is 118 for holidays and 111 otherwise, tickets can be bought much cheaper in advance or by getting the epic pass. our tickets were about 70 dollars bought in advance.

Thanks for the report. It's nice to hear that things are shaping up out there. I skied Copper the 9th through the 12th and it was hurting but still much better than the east. So true about the definitions of ice.

Do you have any pictures? I'd love to see them.