I did a post of all the places we've stayed in the camper here which I try to keep updated as we travel, so I thought I would do a similar one for skiing. I'll try and add some comments about what we've learned about skiing at these ski areas, especially as it applies to staying in a RV.
This was our first day skiing and the day after a big snow dump at in the Southwest. Taos is one of the few ski areas I've been to that welcomes overnight RV camping for FREE. We naively thought it would be fun to stay the night. However, after a full day of skiing we were disappointed to find our batteries almost dead, our pipes frozen, and the weather too cold to run our generator. It was one VERY cold night.
Our first day of skiing in 2016, and our first day at elevation
We headed south with the hopes of slightly warmer weather (night time lows of -17 are a bit too cold). We stayed at an awesome RV park that was about a hour drive from the ski area.
After Santa Fe we headed up to the family cabin which was about 30 minutes from Angle Fire. Angle Fire is very much beginner to intermediate ski area, but a fun little resort. So Kathy and I explored the ski area while the girls took a full day snowboard lesson, something they had been begging to do for some time.
The girls learning to snowboard at Angle Fire
Feb 13 Angel Fire, NM
This was our first day skiing with our friends Brandon and Sabrina who flew in from Seattle over President's Weekend to ski with us.
Skiing with friends Brandon and Sabrina
Feb 14 Taos Ski Valley, NM
For the second day of skiing with Brandon and Sabrina we went to the much more challenging resort, Taos Ski Valley.
It took us a couple days to close up the and re-winterize the cabin, but it was time to head North for some Colorado skiing. Our first ski resort was Wolf Creek. They are one of the very few Colorado ski resorts that allow overnight camping in an RV. The catch to staying at Wolf Creek overnight is that if it snows, and they have to plow the lots, they will wake you up in the middle of the night and ask you to move your vehicle. With this in mind we decided not to stay the night, and instead headed a couple hours to Durango where we stayed in a Holiday Inn.
Telluride is a place that more or less shuns people in RVs. RVs are only allowed to park in the town park, and there is no where that you are allowed to stay in your RV near the ski resort, so we decided to stay in a ski in ski out resort. The excellent resort we stayed in was The Peaks Resort and Spa, and they were more than happy to find safe parking for our camper.
Steamboat Springs was our first busy Colorado ski resort. Unlike Telluride, Steamboat Springs is relatively close to Denver at a little over a 3 hour drive. So even though we skied it on a Wednesday and Thursday it was pretty busy. The nice thing about the town of Steamboat is that there is free bus service throughout the town, so we were able to take the bus from the KOA we were staying at to the the ski resort every morning.
Our first real powder day! The night before our visit to Alta it snowed nearly a foot. This made for great skiing conditions, but it also caused nearly everyone in Salt Lake City to call in sick for the day. From the moment we got on the road that leads up Little Cottonwood Canyon we were in a line of slow moving cars heading up to the ski area.
Solitude got 7" of new snow on March 6, then another 3" or snow on March 8, so we there were some great conditions, and Solitude lived up to it's name. Despite the great ski conditions the area was largely empty with no lines at any of the chairs.
Our first day at Snowbird the snow was a bit heavy, but we followed my brother's good friend Bob (who grew up skiing at Snowbird) around the mountain to all the best snow. The next day it was just our group and Alex, but it was quite a bit warmer and so the snow softened up all over the mountain making for great spring corn snow everywhere.
skiing with my brother Alex and his friend Bob at Snowbird
With the hopes of more snow we headed west to the Sierra Nevada's. We chose Squaw Valley because they allowed overnight camping in your RV (unlike most other ski resorts we visited). We enjoyed two amazing days of warm sun and incredible Spring corn snow. On both days, the mountain warmed up enough by 1pm that you couldn't find any ice anywhere.
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