Back home…
After our great trip to Jackson Hole and Grand Targhee just before Christmas, we came back to California to do some skiing closer to home. We hit Dodge Ridge on Christmas day which is always a great uncrowded day to ski. It’s covered by our Cali Pass and we had vowed to make it there at least once this season. It’s a rare resort where there is basically nothing we can’t ski, yet there is enough challenge to keep it interesting. It was a nice relaxing day.
Soft snow at Dodge Ridge, January 2025
Over our Christmas to New Year break we skied our local hill Bear Valley 4 days and then we did one more day over the MLK weekend. Yes, we skied all holiday dates which is not a great idea and something I would never recommend! Unfortunately we are not retired any more so we do what we must. Bear wasn’t too crowded except for one day which was pretty un-BEAR-able ha ha. After this season we will have to update our review. This is our 4th “home” resort that we will have a deep understanding of as far as the good and bad.
Early January groomer off the Polar Express at Bear Valley, 2025
The Japan trip
California experienced a long dry spell for most of January, so it was great to head over to Japan and ski some soft snow and legit powder. We did a review of Niseko that contains pretty much the whole story. Japan has been super-hyped on social media for the past few seasons so it was great to get over there an see what the place is all about. Niseko receives an average of 550″ of snow a season so planning a trip there is a pretty safe bet and we did have some decent conditions by our standards.
Soft skiing in a snow squall at Hanazono Niseko resort, February 2025
California is in the midst of a huge storm right now which should set us up well for the next 5 weeks at home. Bear Valley received 32″ of snow and will finally be opening Grizzly. Yay!
Next up…an audible was called on resort 100
We’ve been watching the situation at our 100th resort Alyeska and decided that we needed to call an audible and make a last-minute change to the list. It’s been raining on the lower half of the mountain consistently. The weather forecast is for more of that. One of the things we shy away from is frequent rain because when we make a huge effort to get somewhere remote like this, the last thing we want is to only be able to ski the top of the mountain. Add to that the fact that airfare for 2 of us 5 weeks in advance is $2,400 and hotels there are expensive and it’s not really looking like a good choice as a top 100 destination.
View down to the Hanazono Niseko base area, February 2025
I’m pretty sure we will eventually ski it and evaluate it against the others for inclusion, but for now we are going back to Mission Ridge in Washington instead. Mission Ridge has been on and off the list as it evolved over the years. It is slightly larger than Alyeska with a similar vertical. Mission was taken off the list a few years ago when we got tired of the finicky weather in Washington, but overall it actually looks a little more reliable than Alyeska and is much easier and affordable as a ski vacation.
We have already skied more than the 100 resorts we originally intended due to consolidations that happened after we began the project (Park City / Canyons and Squaw Valley / Alpine). We also dropped Homewood which was threatening to become a private club but which is now coming back next year as public with a new gondola.
The project will continue…
All this means that we will continue to refine the list as we ski new places, and will have more than 100 reviews, but the spirit of the project remains that these are what we think are the best resorts in North America!
Waiting for the bus after night skiing at Hirafu Niseko, February 2025