We are excited to start on the 7th full season of the Ski North America 100 project and 18th year accumulating resort visits to the top 100 ski resorts in North America. Somehow we are already 75% of the way finished, but we still expect the project to take another 5-10 years to finish all of them.
First run selfie at Heavenly, November 2018
The season started off strong in Tahoe with our first weekend of skiing on the last day of November featuring a blizzard at Kirkwood and bluebird powder skiing at Heavenly. 2 weeks before, we were hiking in pleasant summerlike temps at 10,000 ft thinking that we would be lucky to ski anything in early December, but things change quickly in Tahoe and the switch from summer to winter was just in time.
Early Season at Heavenly, November 2018
This year we have 4 trips planned in addition to our usual Tahoe skiing. We just returned from the first trip to Vail, Colorado December 8-11. This trip was planned in mid November because Colorado was getting good snowfall. The snow kept coming and it snowed every day for 11 days up to and including the first day on the mountain. This resulted in our best trip to Vail EVER. No crowds, everything open, and the great weather was unbeatable. Our favorable opinion of Vail as a 5-star resort was further improved. Although the skiing there is not very challenging, the quality of the lift network, grooming, and facilities are at the very top of all of the resorts on our list.
Some nice powder at Vail, December 2018
Next up we are giving Whistler/Blackcomb, British Columbia another shot. This will be the 4th time we’ve been there. This time we hope it doesn’t rain and everything is open! After that, we are continuing our focus on the East Coast with a trip to Burlington, Vermont to ski Stowe, Sugarbush, and Mad River Glen.
Back Bowls at Vail, December 2018
Lastly, we will head back to Colorado again to ski our favorite resort Telluride and also my old hometown mountains Crested Butte and Monarch. If it all works out, we will ski 5 new resorts this year, and plenty of our old favorites. It’s on!
#SkiNorthAmerica100