Looking for a base mountain for next year

boston_e said:

Im also still wrestling with that $25k number. I know you could do a season of lodging and season passes for a lot less than that.

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I agree $25k is a bunch of $. Take the passes out of the equation, Okemo for 4 of us is just shy of $3900 with early purchase, and your talking around $20k. If anyone can show me a 2 bedroom or one plus loft ski in/out condo for less than $14/15k before security ($3k) and utilities ($2.5k) on a Mountain similar to Okemo in size/# of trails please get me in touch with the owner/rental agent.

Off mountain I agree is a different ball game and you could do a rental for much less. We did off mountain for years, we went from basically zero $ for lodging (our own place) 30 minutes from a smaller mountain to where we are now, we didn't ski nearly as much or as long, it was too easy to bag going to the MT Sunday for example.

The ability to NEVER have to go to the base lodge or hop n a shuttle for anything has its advantages in my opinion. We stop by the condo during the day for quick breaks, add/drop a layer, eat lunch. If one or 2 want to quit for the day, fine, "here is the key see you at 4:00 get a fire going and have a beer waiting for me"

To each their own but for a family, at least our family, I think a season long on mountain rental creates better memories than taking a few trips a year out west and then dragging your stuff all over New England for a few road trips. Plus we can host friends throughout the season. It would be much easier to stay home if we didn't have a home base and we wouldn't get nearly as much skiing in during the season.

I just wish I was up there now and not typing this in my office!!!

HD333 said:

I agree $25k is a bunch of $. Take the passes out of the equation, Okemo for 4 of us is just shy of $3900 with early purchase, and your talking around $20k. If anyone can show me a 2 bedroom or one plus loft ski in/out condo for less than $14/15k before security ($3k) and utilities ($2.5k) on a Mountain similar to Okemo in size/# of trails please get me in touch with the owner/rental agent.

Off mountain I agree is a different ball game and you could do a rental for much less. We did off mountain for years, we went from basically zero $ for lodging (our own place) 30 minutes from a smaller mountain to where we are now, we didn't ski nearly as much or as long, it was too easy to bag going to the MT Sunday for example.

The ability to NEVER have to go to the base lodge or hop n a shuttle for anything has its advantages in my opinion. We stop by the condo during the day for quick breaks, add/drop a layer, eat lunch. If one or 2 want to quit for the day, fine, "here is the key see you at 4:00 get a fire going and have a beer waiting for me"

To each their own but for a family, at least our family, I think a season long on mountain rental creates better memories than taking a few trips a year out west and then dragging your stuff all over New England for a few road trips. Plus we can host friends throughout the season. It would be much easier to stay home if we didn't have a home base and we wouldn't get nearly as much skiing in during the season.

I just wish I was up there now and not typing this in my office!!!

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No doubt ski on ski off will drive up the price a bunch i'm sure... and justifiably so.

I haven't scoped out around Okemo or Mt Snow, but I know for sure there is an abundance of rentals in the Killington area for more like the 8K-12K range that would be a 10 min drive or less to one of the base areas. Point is that you can go big or do it on more of a budget.

I'm with you though, the season long concept for my family as well is a better option as compared to a big western trip and a bunch of day trips. The ability for the kids to invite their friends or another family is huge as is not having to cart all your stuff around. We have gotten to the point where we pretty much dont pack anything at all when we go up... maybe the kids bring up a couple of books / videos / games or something, but other than that it is just get in the car and go. Everything we need is at the ski house.

for the kind of coin being discussed, wouldn't it make more sense to buy a place? then you can rent it when you're not there to defray some cost, and you have a year round vacation house

spring_mountain_high said:

for the kind of coin being discussed, wouldn't it make more sense to buy a place? then you can rent it when you're not there to defray some cost, and you have a year round vacation house

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The biggest issues that some people find with that plan, is #1, the weeks when many people would want to rent it are often the same weeks that you want to use it.

#2 - unless you have a property management company overseeing the property when you rent it, you're worried about damage, repairs if needed, cleaning the unit before/after its rented out and also the hassle of having to either remove some of your personal items or lock a bunch of stuff up in an "owners closet" when your not there.

There are plenty of units out there in ski country that people think they'll end up at least covering their expenses with some rental income and then often find out that they can't use it when they want and that often it won't pay for itself via rental income

boston_e said:

No doubt ski on ski off will drive up the price a bunch i'm sure... and justifiably so.

I haven't scoped out around Okemo or Mt Snow, but I know for sure there is an abundance of rentals in the Killington area for more like the 8K-12K range that would be a 10 min drive or less to one of the base areas. Point is that you can go big or do it on more of a budget.

I'm with you though, the season long concept for my family as well is a better option as compared to a big western trip and a bunch of day trips. The ability for the kids to invite their friends or another family is huge as is not having to cart all your stuff around. We have gotten to the point where we pretty much dont pack anything at all when we go up... maybe the kids bring up a couple of books / videos / games or something, but other than that it is just get in the car and go. Everything we need is at the ski house.

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By no means a plug for the Mount Snow area, but at Mount Snow they do have an extensive free public transportation system called the "Moover" that goes by tons of properties and developments during ski season (some routes weekends and holiday weeks only, other routes daily) that brings you right to the base area of the mountain that makes being not slopeside quite easy. Personally, if the Moover is running, i'm not driving to the mountain as it drops me off closer that I can park 98% of the time. So be sure to look into the availability of public transportation at the places your looking, makes it easy, and if your kids are old enough and responsible enough, you can send them home early if they're tired and you still want to ski a bit, or if they have to go over the mountain early for ski programs and you or your spouse want to sleep in a bit, it makes it easy to do that too and not have car issues with getting to the mountain

Big shout out for the man spending 25k per season to take his family skiing on a regular basis even if he seems to be overspending! This is a huge sacrifice and I hope it results in a beautiful and life-long connection between his family and skiing. Once-a-year vacations and day tripping won't embed the ski bug as deeply as season-long own/rental at one place. I know both sides of the coin well. I am the product of a family that had a second home in the mtns (1 mile from ski hill) for 15 years when I was a teen and young adult. I have the ski bug big time. Unfortunately I did not have the finances or family situation to own/rent a seasonal ski home for my own large family. I was a ski vacation dad and day tripper family guy. As a result my kids (now adults) all ski, but only one is highly avid/accomplished about it. Super key thing that Dr. Jeff talks about is when your kids make a connection with other "ski house kids". Then they want to go to the mtns all the time for that fun social connection. Day tripper families lose this draw as kids get older and get strong attractions to their local school and neighborhood social circles. You unmarried/childless guys need to know that the key to a husband/father's own skiing fulfillment is getting the rest of the family hooked on skiing. Otherwise, it's fun days, but lonely nights.
By the way, Gore or Killington sound like the way to go to me because of terrain, but for the OP with low-int wife and beginner 4 yr old there may be better choices.

HD333

Should you ever look to buy in Ludlow, I'd highly recommend looking over by Lake Rescue. My parents did seasonal rentals off the Sachem Trail for two years when I was 10 and 11. They ended up buying when I was 12. They decided the value quotient being on mountain just wasn't worth the premium and offered little benefit in the summer months. Being over by the lake was better for year round. In the summer I was able to walk to Rescue or Pauline for fishing and swimming. Buttermilk Falls or Echo Lake State Park weren't bad bike rides away either.

At first they thought they'd miss the convenience of being slope side, but in the end the year round enjoyment of having your own land with fire pit, horseshoes, plus other off hill diversions just made it feel more like a home than a condo on the hill. We really didn't find it that big of a deal to park at the base and would only go back there at the end of the day. We'd pack a lunch and have a bag with extra necessities that we would leave at the Sugar House and base out of there for the day. They tended to quit before I wanted to and I'd just stay at the hill and give them a call from a pay phone in the basement when I was ready to leave for the day and they'd drive the 5 minutes to pick me up.

Great memories. Kudos to you for providing the same for your kids.

spring_mountain_high said:

for the kind of coin being discussed, wouldn't it make more sense to buy a place? then you can rent it when you're not there to defray some cost, and you have a year round vacation house

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It can make sense yes. We rented for a few years before settling in and buying. I think renting for a few years first is a good idea to help you get the lay of the land, experiment on where you want to be etc etc.

Ultimatley buying / renting is a pretty personal preference. When you buy a place you get all of the benefits, and all of the headaches of vacation/rental home ownership.

This thread is full of very useful information, and thank you all for chiming in.

A bunch of people talked about why it is good to have a base mountain for the family. They said it much better than I did in my OP. Costs are high, but I have a feeling that it would be worth it. I have to decide if I can afford the slopeside, but that's another thing.

If I were doing it by myself, like a lot of others said, I'd just chase snow and not get a season rental. I'd drive 5 hours every weekend, etc. So, I definitely see the point of view of a lot of the single guys here.

I need to think about all this. It seems that:

• Killington has the most variety, and the Pico option to avoid crowds. But not a great family vibe at K (but good family vibe at Pico). Another half hour or so from the others. How is snowmaking at Pico?
• Among the southern Vt areas, Stratton seems to have better snowfall, and higher base. MS might have better terrain, though. I haven't skied either.
• Okemo has a low base altitude, possibly making it prone to rain, etc.
• As much as I'd prefer Gore, it doesn't seem to have as much snow as the So. Vt does (this year and the recent storm being an exception), and probably also not as good snowmaking.
• Hunter and Bromley will probably not work given their size.

The geek in me made a quick table to help with it.



What am I missing? I am sure I got some of this wrong. Let me know what you think!

The 2 NY adk mountains with chair lifts ave. same snow as south Vermont about 160 a year. i would say go to so VT for fakioy because snow making not be run by NY state agency means they make more snow for customers. Gore has been getting much better iver the last 10 years.Also check out NY ski blog for korre info on Gore and Whiteface, a lot more NY ppl with great knowledge on ADK s on that site.

Looking at your chart and reading Chewbacca and Deadhead's posts I might have to agree Okemo would be good for your family. I've been to every mtn on your chart except Bromley. Okemo has some decent black diamond glades, cool terrain parks/play zones, and enough fine cruisers to be fun for a season for an advanced skier. No question they are one of the best groomed mtns around. My experience there is a few years ago, but it seemed like an extremely kid/family friendly mtn. Must say, for my easy skiing wife, it was one of the VT mtns she enjoyed the most = Okemomma

if one were shopping for a seasonal rental, say in S VT, where would one look for listings? I've seen some on craigslist, other resources?

Unless you are really going to go for ski on ski off or walk to the lifts, I'd consider Killington / Pico to be one option if I were you... of course with the sub decision of buy killington passes and jump over to pico on occasion, or buy the cheaper pico passes and buy a few lift tickets at Killington on occasion.

As far as snowmaking Pico is OK, but more limited than Killington.... but I'd say appropriate for the size of the mountain.

One other thing to consider is the drive time. While it may not seem like much, the difference between 3:30 and 4:00 is not insignifigant... espicially if you are doing it almost every weekend.

gmcunni said:

if one were shopping for a seasonal rental, say in S VT, where would one look for listings? I've seen some on craigslist, other resources?

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Try some rental by owner web sights... homeaway.com, vrbo.com etc

Also realtors in the area of the mountan. For Killington there is Killinton Valley Real Estate and others.

for Mount Snow area try these

http://rentalsonly.com/
http://www.tpwvacations.com/destinations/mount-snow-vt
http://www.mountsnowvermontrentals.com/

gmcunni said:

if one were shopping for a seasonal rental, say in S VT, where would one look for listings? I've seen some on craigslist, other resources?

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Check out the real estate links on the website of the local paper for the Deerfield Valley, the Deerfield Valley News (www.dvalnews.com), while most of the real estate agencies are in the Mount Snow area, a bunch of their listings are also up the the general Stratton area which makes for an easy ride (20 min or so tops) to Stratton, Mount Snow, Bromley and Magic.

For example from my place at Mount Snow (right across rte 100 from the North (Main) entrance of Mount Snow, the Sun Bowl at Stratton is 20 minutes away, and Bromley and Magic are both 35 or so minutes (under normal travel conditions), so there's plenty of proximity amongst the resorts on the rte 100/rte 30 corridors in So Vt

gmcunni said:

if one were shopping for a seasonal rental, say in S VT, where would one look for listings? I've seen some on craigslist, other resources?

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For the Ludlow area we used Trailsend Accommodations, couldn't be happier with them. They for some reason seem to have access to places that allow dogs or at least catered to it. We started with Okemo Mountian Real Estate, Kathy Burns specifically, and when the topic of the dog came up she pointed us to them. She actually followed up with us a few times to make sure we were all set.

lerops said:

• Killington has the most variety, and the Pico option to avoid crowds. But not a great family vibe at K (but good family vibe at Pico). Another half hour or so from the others. How is snowmaking at Pico?
• Among the southern Vt areas, Stratton seems to have better snowfall, and higher base. MS might have better terrain, though. I haven't skied either.
• Okemo has a low base altitude, possibly making it prone to rain, etc.

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Nice chart.

Pico's snowmaking is decent. They'll cover 60-70% of the mountain a year. They're usually open mid-December to the last weekend of March or 1st weekend of April.

Stratton and Mount Snow typically get the same amount of snow, even though Stratton is a bit higher. Okemo always gets a few inches less than MS or Stratton.

Thanks.

For overall conditions, is it fair to say that on average you'd have similar conditions through the year across Okemo, Stratton and MS? Killington probably is better given more snow, and as good snowmaking. Pico might be slightly worse, but they get more snow.

lerops said:

Thanks.

For overall conditions, is it fair to say that on average you'd have similar conditions through the year across Okemo, Stratton and MS? Killington probably is better given more snow, and as good snowmaking. Pico might be slightly worse, but they get more snow.

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Pretty much. I'm not sure I'd say Pico conditions would be worse, but they would have fewer trails when snowmaking is a must than some of the bigger places.

personally I'm a big fan of Pico for the family, but I don't think you can go wrong at any of these places.