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2012-2013 Season Planning

lou12572

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paul m
i live in northern dutchess. southern vermont would be 3 to 3-1/2 hour ride is my guess for you. my take would be bromley for the wife and daughter. you if you want more in the way of more chalenging for you you could seperate for a couple of times and go to magic mountain. they are open friday to monday. if you get the magic card you'd pay 25$ for fridays and mondays (this season) and you'd get 10$ off the weekend price which was 59-10=49$ (this season). bromley has lots of good blues and is groomed well. there are some good blacks for you also. if you'd want to add an extra 20 mins or so okemo is not bad. okemo has lots of slopeside and is probably on the high side money wise. but i think as far as skiing i think your wife and daughter would enjoy it very much imo. some one mentioned gore, that is 3 hrs + from northern dutchess so it would be 4 to 4-1/2 for you is my guess. there is a lot of little hotels and motels around and are cheap and in a lot of cases not bad. there are some dining establishments in north creek which are reasonable. gore expanded to the old north creek ski bowl so they are trying to get more there. if you look into skiadk forum harvey44 (i think thats who it is) haqs a good blog regarding gore. also not to far away is lake george and they usually have a winter festival in february. just my opinions hope they help
 

BenedictGomez

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Reading the bd it sounds like the bottom of Jay is flat and loses snow quickly, especially this year. Having no mid-slope lifts and a long, flat run out can't be good. We're considering make a trip the week after Easter to Jay and others to get a feel of a couple more places.

Jay Peak is vastly superior to anything in the Catskills and anything in southern Vermont. If you're strictly talking about "mid-slope" lifts as being something that goes up literally 50%, no, they dont have that, but they have one lift that goes up about 40% and another that goes up about 75%. Plus, the tree skiing at JP is drawdroppingly good. The drive would be a pain for you though, but if you dont mind the few extra hours per trip, this would be an easy decision IMO.
 

xwhaler

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Jay Peak is vastly superior to anything in the Catskills and anything in southern Vermont. If you're strictly talking about "mid-slope" lifts as being something that goes up literally 50%, no, they dont have that, but they have one lift that goes up about 40% and another that goes up about 75%. .

I may be wrong but I interpreted PaulM's statement to mean that Jay didnt have any upper mtn only liffts which would be conducive to keeping terrain open late in the season at higher elevations. Though that assumes they would consider downloading options to avoid lwr mtn terrain that has melted and I'm not sure they do that?
 

HowieT2

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sugarbush homer here so you know where I'd recommend. we've been going every weekend from Croton for the last 5 seasons with 2 kids now 11 and 15. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me.

as for the wife. fwiw- mine was a typical take it or leave it blue skier until I gave her as a gift a 4 day womens only clinic the bush has twice a year. she is now the motivator in the family. totally hardcore and never misses a weekend.
 

Paul_M

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I may be wrong but I interpreted PaulM's statement to mean that Jay didnt have any upper mtn only liffts which would be conducive to keeping terrain open late in the season at higher elevations. Though that assumes they would consider downloading options to avoid lwr mtn terrain that has melted and I'm not sure they do that?

By mid-slope lift I'm talking about lifts that start in the middle of the mtn avoiding the newly arriving skiers, the ticket checkers and the typically flat run outs at the bottom.

Examples of this would be the Canyon Quad or North Ridge at Killington.

Sugarbush is on the list to check out as well. My wife's level of skiing has basically stagnated and she needs a solid 25-35 day season to make a jump.
 

catskillman

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If she is a solid blue skier, rent a condo in windham or the hunter area and put her in a weekly woman's ski clinic. Then next season move on, and you'll have an idea of how much of a drive you can handle each weekend. You may get bored there so head to Hunter, Belleayre or Platikill a day here & there for some variety... while she gets better.

Windham pass is expensive, but probally much cheaper than K. A lot of places have family passes, I know Hunter does which can probally save you a lot with 3.

that 10 hours in the car each weekend will get very old and expensive quickly.

Mopst places have early discounts if you buy your pass early. Hunter's cutoff is May 1 this year.
 

HowieT2

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If she is a solid blue skier, rent a condo in windham or the hunter area and put her in a weekly woman's ski clinic. Then next season move on, and you'll have an idea of how much of a drive you can handle each weekend. You may get bored there so head to Hunter, Belleayre or Platikill a day here & there for some variety... while she gets better.

Windham pass is expensive, but probally much cheaper than K. A lot of places have family passes, I know Hunter does which can probally save you a lot with 3.

that 10 hours in the car each weekend will get very old and expensive quickly.

Mopst places have early discounts if you buy your pass early. Hunter's cutoff is May 1 this year.

10 hours in the car doesnt get quite so old when you're skiing fresh powder on great terrain off of uncrowded lifts. just sayin'
I've had 6-8 legitimate powder days in this "terrible" season. The bush has been 100% open since early january. How has the skiing been in the catskills??? my best friend has a place at windham. He has barely had a good day. His wife won't even go. but he must be loving getting there much quicker
besides other than the gas expense, what difference is another few hours in the car.
 

catskillman

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It's huge for anyone with kids and homework and after school stuff. And people with jobs that can't get in the car at 5 o'clock.

Honestly, the conditions have been very good at Hunter with the exception of a few moon surface days, and some very scraped off afternoons. I get very few weekdays in, and I am always told that midweek was great. They do make their snow.

Windham, which I have not skied this season, is another story. Remember they lost their snowmaking capabilities in total due to hurricane Irene and got off to a late start. It has not been a great season there I understand and this warm weather is not helping. Hunter still has about 6 feet of snow on most upper trails. (At least they did on Sunday). From the looks of the webcam they need to push some of that down through mid station.

I would love to ski a bigger mountain every weekend. Just can't see sepending an extra 5 hours in the car. After a day of skiing were tired - and it is not fun and at times safe to be getting in the car. Also, sometimes, though not this year, it snows which make the drive worse.
 

Paul_M

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It's hard to spend season pass money at Windham ....considering Vt has more dependable and longer seasons, yet still w/in reach.
 

riverc0il

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Jay Peak is vastly superior to anything in the Catskills and anything in southern Vermont.
Maybe for some people. If you like intermediate straight down the fall line cruising, Jay isn't a great mountain. I bet there are a lot of people that would enjoy SoVT and Catskills more than Jay. The OP here seems to be looking for an area with many different attributes for many different people. Your blanket statement doesn't match up with the OP's needs, IMO.
 

HowieT2

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It's huge for anyone with kids and homework and after school stuff. And people with jobs that can't get in the car at 5 o'clock.

Honestly, the conditions have been very good at Hunter with the exception of a few moon surface days, and some very scraped off afternoons. I get very few weekdays in, and I am always told that midweek was great. They do make their snow.

Windham, which I have not skied this season, is another story. Remember they lost their snowmaking capabilities in total due to hurricane Irene and got off to a late start. It has not been a great season there I understand and this warm weather is not helping. Hunter still has about 6 feet of snow on most upper trails. (At least they did on Sunday). From the looks of the webcam they need to push some of that down through mid station.

I would love to ski a bigger mountain every weekend. Just can't see sepending an extra 5 hours in the car. After a day of skiing were tired - and it is not fun and at times safe to be getting in the car. Also, sometimes, though not this year, it snows which make the drive worse.

Truthfully, i never in a million years thought we would do the drive every weekend, but we got used to it. And the kids do homework in the car when they have to. Otherwise they are on the computer
Which is what they would be doing at home anyway. And i like to drive. Ironically, we had our slowest drive ever this year on friday night of mlk weekend. 6.5 hours.
 

ScottySkis

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If i had a good winter car and more disposable income then i'm pretty sure i ski at Mad River Valley a lot, my dream for east coast winter fun, owners of two fantastic hills really great job taking care of their investments and customers. Lots of glades and natural snow, big vertical, reasonable prices to stay, even Hostel. Laid back community, and hour closer then Stowe and Jay, but you can ski at Burke or other guy's if you want change your hill. But that is my fantastically dreamy New England ski bum life.
 

Paul_M

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I did say my wife and kid were low intermediate, but with a few consecutive days working on their skiing they would change fast. My wife has gotten more cautious over the years and my daughter needs some more days and some lessons. The snow conditions limit the amount of terrain they're willing to try; under soft conditions they are much more adventurous.

We're going to probably do a combo of day trips to Windham(they prefer Windham over Hunter) , and occasionally venture up to mid Vt. Right now a couple of blackout passes and a full pass for the kid at Killington seem to be the best combo of price, reasonable lodging (rutland), dependable snow, and variety of terrain. If we didn't want to be exclusively tied to K, the X2 pass offers some savings, but we could still try Jay or others.

This is my daughter at Whistler 5 years ago.
 
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gmcunni

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If i had a good winter car and more disposable income then i'm pretty sure i ski at Mad River Valley a lot, my dream for east coast winter fun, owners of two fantastic hills really great job taking care of their investments and customers. Lots of glades and natural snow, big vertical, reasonable prices to stay, even Hostel. Laid back community, and hour closer then Stowe and Jay, but you can ski at Burke or other guy's if you want change your hill. But that is my fantastically dreamy New England ski bum life.

^ if my wife skied
 

Paul_M

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If i had a good winter car and more disposable income then i'm pretty sure i ski at Mad River Valley a lot, my dream for east coast winter fun, owners of two fantastic hills really great job taking care of their investments and customers. Lots of glades and natural snow, big vertical, reasonable prices to stay, even Hostel. Laid back community, and hour closer then Stowe and Jay, but you can ski at Burke or other guy's if you want change your hill. But that is my fantastically dreamy New England ski bum life.
No boarders you say? Hmmmmm
 

mlkrgr

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If i had a good winter car and more disposable income then i'm pretty sure i ski at Mad River Valley a lot, my dream for east coast winter fun, owners of two fantastic hills really great job taking care of their investments and customers. Lots of glades and natural snow, big vertical, reasonable prices to stay, even Hostel. Laid back community, and hour closer then Stowe and Jay, but you can ski at Burke or other guy's if you want change your hill. But that is my fantastically dreamy New England ski bum life.

Same here; usually I'm just by myself or with a friend when I go though. With the high gas prices lately, it's even quite uneconomical to drive more than 2.5 hours each way (5 rt) to redeem a free voucher unless you're with someone else. With 340 miles roundtrip, you're talking 16 gallons of gas *3.70 now (which is a bit conservative and will go higher in the next couple weeks, that's $59.20 for gas only (and this is not even counting incremental wear and tear). For that price, it's just as well to board a bus for somewhere between $59 and $82. I wouldn't even dream of going to Jay w/ the price of ski and stay without a group now too.

I'll be doing the same as usual; I may not even bother going for vouchers to mountains you have to drive to for buying mall gift cards if things are like they are next year at least for mountains more than a 4 hour round trip drive. I'd be all over Sugarbush for a season pass though if buses would be going there as much as Sunday River.
 

Paul_M

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Yup, MRG would help keep your teen age daughter away from sleezy snowboarders.

My wife and kid tend to be on the same runs as the boarders w just a few days under they're belt so they're kind of a distraction.

I don't know that I would characterize snowboarders as sleazy, though. In fact I wouldn't mind if she had a group of kids to ski with.
 

jrmagic

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Magic could work for you as well. First and foremost its a great family mountian/ There are slopeside cnodos you can rent at a reasonable price for the season which don't hve the same responsibilities as a house, plus the passes are very reasonable and there is good terrain to keep you busy and for your daughter to progress and good cruising for your wife. I'm in Tuckahoe and make it in less than 3 1/2 hours. given the cheaper price of the pss you coudl also hit other mountains on occasion as well. Stratton, Okemo and Bromley are all pretty close and K is less than an hour away. We've even done day trips up to the MRV on occasion which isn't too bad of a ride either.
 
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