How close do you need to be?

[snafu]

I know the obvious answer to the question is "as close as possible" but how close do you need to be to the mountain to get the most out of your experience? Ski in ski out would I think be anyones first choice but financially is not an option for alot of people. So assuming you can't afford to be that close what is the maximum distance you'd stay from your favorite ski resort where u wouldn't mind the commute.

This could be a two part question in the sense of someone just doing a long weekend or someone thinking or buying or renting a seasonal. I am more interested in what people would settle for if they were going to buy or rent seasonally.

 

[Greg]

If I was to go through the exercise of buying/renting a second home, I would want to be pretty close, probably within 15 minutes.

 

[tylerjames]

within city limits

 

[noski]

In the MRV, you can book a weekend/midweek stay at a property served by the free MadBus, 7 days a week, and until 2am on Saturday nights.

 

[Glenn]

We're about 25 minutes away. We've found it to be a very good compromise. We're still close to the mountain, but we're also not that far from Brattleboro.

 

[bvibert]

I think I'd want to be within 10-15 minutes from the slopes. I'd probably settle for a bit further away if the cost difference was substantial.

 

[WWF-VT]

Currently my place in VT is about 4 miles from Lincoln Peak and 6 miles from Mt Ellen so a quick drive to either mountain. Most days it's a ten to fifteen minute drive. More important sometimes is that it's less than a mile to the grocery / beer store !

 

[drjeff]

I'm a 5 minute shuttle bus/car ride away. And with respect to where I am at Mount Snow I actually prefer that to slopeside, if for no other reason than the view I get when I look out the window!

or my night time view with a full fan gun assault going on!

I can't get that slopeside, and with the shuttle that picks me up at my door and drops me off right in the base area, I'm very happy with my setup/distance to the hill - and I even say that after going on vacation to Utah and staying slopeside there

 

[Smellytele]

I used to have a seasonal in Jackson NH. 2 minutes to Black. 20 minutes to Wildcat, Attitash and Mt Washington. We would still drive the hour sometimes to SR.

 

[Riverskier]

Living a little over an hour from my home mountain, day tripping is pretty easy. Therefore, if I was going to consider buying it would really have to be ski in/ski out to make it worthwhile. The only way I would consider off mountain would be if it was on a lake, so it could truly be a 4 season vacation home. Even if my mountain was further away, or I wanted to start skiing somewhere else, I would still demand ski in/ski out. Having rented on mountain, nothing beats the experience of skiing to your door at the end of the day. Having to still deal with parking, lodges, etc. wouldn't make buying off mountain worthwhile for me. I suppose my opinion on this would probably differ if I lived further south and had to drive 3+ hours just to get to decent skiing.

 

[Geoff]

I kind of like where I am. 2 miles from my pay parking spot. I can drive the SUV that far wearing ski boots so I boot up in the condo, drive 4 minutes, walk a few hundred steps to the Gondola, and arrive at the top warm & toasty. My SUV is my mobile locker room all winter. My complex is townhouses where very few get rented. I can walk to a bunch of bars & restaurants but it's very quiet compared to the weekend mayhem at the complexes that are mostly rented out.

If I had kids, I'd be way more interested in ski-in/ski-out.

 

[x10003q]

We are about a mile from the Gore access road and about a mile to Main St in North Creek. There is no slopeside at Gore (yet), so you can not get much closer. I am quite happy to be 5 minutes from the parking lot but slopeside would be ideal. For many years a generous friend invited me to his Stratton slopeside unit (out the back door, ski to the base 6 pack/gondola). There is nothing better than slopeside. No hiking in ski boots, you are the 1st one on the lift, lunches are relaxing and affordable, if you need to change clothes or forgot something, if you are wet from the weather you just put everything in the dryer during lunch, great for spring parties overlooking the slope from the deck, no need to get in the car, accurate weather observations, on the mountain during the rare monster storm that closes the access road, etc. The ease of getting to Gore, the terrain, plus the cost of southern VT slopeside at the time outweighed the desire for slopeside.

 

[4aprice]

Home is less then an hour from Camelback and its all interstate highway. It's only 20 minutes from there to the family Pocono house which is also <1 hour to Elk Mt. But a better example is the my brother- in- laws condo in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. It's located right between the entrances to Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood Canyons. Brighton is about 16 miles, Solitude 15 miles, Alta 12 miles and Snowbird 11 miles. Close to the skiing and all the advantages of being down in the valley. If the canyons are closed it's 45 mins to Park City. I've only seen Parleys Canyon closed once in the many times I've been there and I wouldn't have wanted to ski that day anyway.

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ

 

[JD]

I live 40 minutes from any real Mtns, but put my skis on in my driveway to ski the town nelsa. Thats close enough.

 

[sLoPeS]

4 minutes to the K1 is saaaaweeet!

 

[ERJ-145CA]

If it was at one mountain then I'd probably need to be no more than 5 minutes away. It would seem silly to drive farther to skiing when I'm on vacation than when I'm at home and the 2 local areas are 10 and 15 minutes away respectively. When we go to Bromley we stay at the Sun Lodge which is ski in ski out.

When I was a kid my parents used a friend's Pocono house a few years in a row and that was centrally located to Jack Frost, Camelback and Shawnee so we would go to a different area each day and usually at night too. That might be an exception if I could hit multiple mountains within 15 or 20 minutes of the lodging.

 

[highpeaksdrifter]

I'm 5 minutes from Whiteface. I'm very happy with that. There is no such thing as slopeside at WF (I'm very happy with that too), so while there are some people closer then me there aren't many and those who are not by much.

 

[Vortex]

I was 25 min away prior to being able to click in out my front door.

I did not mind the ride, but the kids wanted to have more control of when they came and went. The socaialization factor for the kids was a key also. They want to go, cause there is stuff going on. I would at least want to be on a shuttle loop.