Washington School House Hotel, Park City, Utah

By William Triplett

There’s a new hotel in Park City.

Well, not entirely. The Washington School House Hotel is a 19th century schoolhouse that’s been renovated into an upscale, boutique pension that sleekly fuses the historical architecture with a decidedly cool, modern look.

Only 12 rooms are on offer. But what rooms they are. Some are on two levels, connected by an iron spiral staircase. Chairs, armoires and settees flow along the lines of antique French provincial, usually set against a backdrop of stark white walls soaring upward of 16 feet in some places. The 9-foot double hung windows (with shutters) let light fall on reclaimed oak barn wood flooring, which adds a warm touch particularly just outside the top-to-bottom white marbled bathrooms. The king sized beds? Couldn’t be more inviting or welcoming.

Washington School House Hotel in Park City, not your typical ski hotel

Every room has a pied-a-terre feel to it – apropos enough, given that you’re a block away from Main Street, a.k.a. the main drag, where dining that ranges from carry-out to reservation-only is available. Not to mention the various watering holes that await.

If you’ve got the wallet for it – when I was there in early February rooms started at $675, including an impressive breakfast and apres ski nibbles – the Washington School House Hotel is a lovely, posh base camp from which to launch all manner of expeditions in and around Park City. First off, hotel staff will get you to and from any of the three world-class ski meccas in the ‘hood – Park City Mountain Resort, Deer Valley and Canyons, all of which made it into Ski magazine’s Top-10 list of best places to carve turns this season.

Second, the staff will also clue you into other fun you can have. I went dogsledding one morning and then snowshoeing in the afternoon, both under glorious sun and blue sky. I’d never mushed before, but I definitely will again, and the snowshoeing was a welcomed aerobic after a possibly too-satisfying lunch.

Thus, third: You can dine at the Washington School House with a private chef preparing a private meal ($45-$65 per person, depending on protein, wine included). If my experience is any indication, you’ll feel spoiled. But the staff is happy to suggest eateries nearby, such as:

High West Distillery – The world’s only ski-in saloon, featuring its own brews and whiskeys and some great takes on American dishes.

Vinto Pizzeria – Wood-fired pizzas and some contemporary twists on fresh seasonal Italian cuisine.

The Riverhorse – Among the oldest restaurants in Park City, recently renovated, offering hearty fare that has won accolades such as the Forbes Four Star Recognition and the DiRoNA Award.

Talisker on Main – Extremely fine dining in a cozy atmosphere. The seasonal menu changes daily, and everything seems to have a unique touch. Presentation, especially of appetizers, can be dramatic.

Salt Lake City, with skiing at the city’s edge

If, like most people, you’re going home from Park City via Salt Lake City airport, you might consider tacking on a day or two on for checking out SLC itself, which has sprouted some interesting stuff of late. Yes, the slopes of Alta, Snowbird, Brighton and Solitude are within easy reach. But there’s plenty to do/see in downtown.

For instance, the recently opened Natural History Museum of Utah – “a superior museum” designed with “powerful impact,” the New York Times said – features numerous interactive displays and exhibits on everything from dinosaur fossils and geology to DNA and astronomy and even an artifact, found in a Utah desert cave, dating to 7,000 BC.

Centrally located in downtown is the new City Creek Center, a shopping mall that can open its glass roof on pleasant days or otherwise keep it closed keeping things nicely climate-controlled. Running down the center of the mall is a stone creek – complete with fish – and it adds considerably to the not-your-standard-mall atmosphere. Stores lean toward the well-branded – Tiffany & Co., Brooks Brothers, Nordstrom, Macy’s, and the only Salomon sporting goods retail shop outside of corporate headquarters in Ogden.

A privately-owned bookstore I visited ranks with anything similar I’ve seen in Seattle, New York or Washington, D.C. Eborn Books, offering both new and used volumes, on South Main Street, also includes a café offering homemade entrees and desserts. (Try the apple pie.)

With over 20 new eateries having opened in recent months, dining in general is pretty impressive around Salt Lake City – from Takashi restaurant (known for sushi) to the Lion House Pantry Restaurant (homestyle cooking in what used to be Brigham Young’s home). Just want a drink? Any number of bars are around, and no, you no longer have to become a “member” to imbibe.

Plenty of lodging available, too. I stayed at the Hotel Monaco, a Kimpton boutique located in the heart of downtown. Large, spacious rooms and a renowned restaurant (try the signature blue cheese potato chips). But the city sports all manner of hotels, many offering rooms for under $100 a night.

One other thing: Check out the Salt Lake Temple, the spiritual center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. You don’t have to be Mormon or even religious at all to be awed by the gothic grandeur.  We should all look so good when we’re 160 years old.

For reservation, visit Washington School House Hotel

For more on Salt Lake, go to Visit Salt Lake

  William Triplett is a contributor to The Daily Beast and the former DC bureau chief for Variety. Triplett has written about various destinations, from Scotland’s Inverness and Paris’s Pere Lachaise Cemetery to Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon and the Beatles’ old haunts in Hamburg. His work has appeared in the The Washington Post,  The Baltimore Sun,and Capital Style.

The post A Ski Week in Park City & Salt Lake City, Utah appeared first on Everett Potter's Travel Report.

The author following John Clendenin down Aspen Mountain. Photo by Lynn Goldsmith

By Everett Potter

“You’re going to ski on a level you’ve never skied before.”

We are sitting at the Sundeck restaurant on Aspen Mountain, 18 seasoned skiers listening to these words and every other word that is spoken, shouted and barked by a handsome, tanned and fit 60-something named John Clendenin, the founder of the Clendenin Ski Method.

“All conditions, all terrain, no problem,” asserts Clendenin, still something of the cocky kid who was twice World Freestyle Champion back in the 1970’s before evolving into one of the most sought-after ski instructors in the United States. His clientele is demanding, Aspen executive-types like Jim Crown and super-recruiter Dennis Carey. Denise Rich had recently requested her private lesson be moved to Sun Valley, so Clendenin dutifully boarded her jet and flew to Idaho for the day.

Clendenin enlightening the group before hitting the slopes one morning. Photo by Lynn Goldsmith.

But Clendenin is demanding, too, and his acolytes—many of whom have taken the three-day camp multiple times—wouldn’t have it any other way. Some of the women in our group exude the mellow, half-dazed aura of groupies, and one couple in their early 70’s admits that this is their 20th time. This doesn’t mean that the Clendenin Method doesn’t work. It means that skiing, like fly fishing or golf, is a sport where you can always get better.

The raison d’etre for the camp lies in some simple math that Clendenin readily spouts: “About 90 percent of skiers stick to the groomed runs, which is about 20 percent of any mountain. I want to take you away from these freeways into what I call the Kingdom – the 80 percent of the mountain with moguls and powder that’s virtually empty. But in order to do that, we need to know how to ski bumps, in control at all times.”

We break into four groups with instructors steeped in the Method while Clendenin spends the day skiing between the groups. He’s always effusive, hugging the women and bellowing at the men like some overgrown frat boy, shouting “Soft edges are what you need!” and “Everything starts in the feet!” The bravado and the grin turn out to be the tools of a great instructor. You will hear praise, but you won’t hear flattery.

On the slopes of Aspen Mountain with Clendenin. Photo by Lynn Goldsmith,

Day one is a struggle, even on the gently rolling groomed terrain where we get used to the Method. The demon Clendenin is trying to rid you of is the stem turn, the awkward turning of the ski that’s acquired by beginners and stays with many for a lifetime. As I occasionally slip into a stem, I’m called out like a kid caught chewing gum in school.

“When you turn, your feet should be like two private jets flying parallel to each other,” says Clendenin, using a metaphor that is readily grasped in Aspen.

At the heart of his Method, which he freely admits is based on watching Jean Claude Killy ski, are the “Four Words,” which he repeats like a mantra: drift, center, touch, tip.

You drill each of these concepts repeatedly, a serious rethinking of skiing that requires a willingness to let go. Your goal is what Clendenin calls “The Love Spot,” a phrase which makes me think of some Barry White song but in fact refers to that perfect (and elusive) moment in skiing when it’s all working and feels effortless – you’re in control and floating. Some 4,500 people have come in search of “The Love Spot, including, with the group I joined, Gerry Goldstein, best known as the late Hunter S Thompson’s attorney. I watched him fly down the mountain, which he attributes entirely to Clendenin, saying “He has converted an awkward, middle-aged skier with knee replacements into someone who can ski anything with comfort and no pain.”

John Clendenin (left) and the author, in a rare moment of repose. Photo by Lynn Goldsmith.

On day two, I learned that when it begins to work – and it does, even if you can’t get Barry White out of your head — you have an incredible sensation of effortlessly floating down the mountain. As it gets steeper, you adjust. As you go faster, you learn to control the speed. By the end of day two, we were doing laps on mogul runs, the no-excuses-follow-me kind of skiing, where you are turning in the tracks of your instructor, who is three feet ahead of you, faster and faster, on ever steeper and tougher black diamond moguls. You feel like you’re steering a jet and you can’t cheat – if you fall back to stem turns, you’ll lose speed and crash. The only way to do it is their way. At the end of a run, you feel like a genius.

Is he the best ski instructor in the United States? As a veteran of every major ski teaching method in the country for more than 20 years, I find these words in my head at the end of the day. By the final day, there’s no question mark and “Is he” is now “He is.”

We ended the final day on Volkswagen Beetle-size moguls on Ridge of Bell, a double back diamond run that leaves your heart in your throat when you view it from below. We were finally in Clendenin’s Kingdom, and skiing it with some aplomb. The man with the keys to the Kingdom watched us, still barking, still shouting, and always grinning.

The Clendenin Ski Method camps are three-days long and are held seven times a winter in Aspen and twice in Park City. Every September, Clendenin brings his camp to Portillo, Chile. There are Basic Camps for $989 and Camp Plus, which includes a half hour training session on a ski simulator, use of high performance skis, and access to the Aspen Club & Spa, for $1,149.

The post Skiing the Clendenin Ski Method in Aspen appeared first on Everett Potter's Travel Report.

A helicopter at your front door — assuming your front door is attached to Bighorn, the luxury heliskiing lodge in Revelstoke. BC

Everett Potter

The Selkirk-Tangiers A-6 helicopter flew fast and low, nearly skimming the tops of a sea of spruce trees, making me feel like I had a front row seat at an Imax movie. The pilot kept gazing heavenward for a sign – and not a religious one, thankfully, but a thin patch in the clagg, pilot slang for fog and cloud. When he found one, we rose in slow gyres up into another world, a white, snow-covered Valhalla called the Selkirk Mountains in central British Columbia. Three minutes later, he deposited us on a mountain top, leaving us in a cloud of powder, and about two minutes later, in profound silence. We had 100 mile plus views of mountain tops in every direction, as we stood shin deep in a blanket of thick, virgin, down-like snow that we would shortly begin dicing up into figure eights.

The main living room at Bighorn

Eight hours later, after a hot stone massage and a long soak in the pool sized outdoor Jacuzzi, I collapsed onto a couch in the three story living room at Bighorn. This is a 15,000 square foot private timber chalet purpose built for heli skiing at the edge of a massive but embryonic Canadian ski resort called Revelstoke. A maid named Amanda, in starched black and white livery, offered me a glass of Louis Roeder on a silver palver. Chef Peter Hughes,  formerly in service to the Kristiansen family, the Danish family that owns Lego, passed a tray of smoked elk, bison and moose. A five- course dinner awaited, accompanied by the wines of the adjacent OkanaganValley. Bighorn is a slope side Downton Abbey, a potent cocktail of extreme skiing and extreme luxury, garnished with a private helicopter pad.

In the pantheon of skiing, heli skiing is the peak, a rich man’s sport – as rule of thumb, figure $50 a minute to keep a helicopter going, then times that by 6 hours a day — with an element of danger, largely in the form of backcounty avalanches. And in the hierarchy of heli skiing, British Columbia is ultima thule, the land of many mountains and deep champagne powder, deep as in powder that can easily reach your knees and often your waist as you descend a mountain. Ground zero is “Revvy,” as the locals call it, is the heli skiing capital of the world. The sleepy town has a big mountain – Revelstoke — a collection of bungalows and  historic brick buildings. It’s not ready for prime time by a long shot.

Other heli companies stash their guests at rustic lodges or motels in sleepy Revelstoke, the Best Western lights visible through the shades. Bighorn takes the heli equation to another dimension.

It is the brainchild of two shockingly young English brothers, Michael and Chris Kirkland. Heli skiing addicts since they were teens – they are scions of the Bowmer & Kirkland Group, the largest privately owned construction company in the UK — the brothers decided to build an English style Alpine chalet at Revelstoke  Now you may ask, “What is an English style chalet?” It’s not just a building but a way that well-heeled Brits prefer to take a ski holiday in the Alps. You rent a grand home with multiple bedrooms and private chef in Klosters or Val D’Isere and spend a week there with family and friends. If you’re a bit wealthier, you buy or build your own. The brothers did just that in tony Courchevel. But while the skiing is great in the French Alps, it is epic in British Columbia.

“Chris and I have been skiing for 25 years,” explains Michael one morning at breakfast to me, “and we loved the idea of bringing a great European style luxury lodge to Canada. The bedroom configuration was designed around the number of skiers using an A Star helicopter.”

Michael, who fuels up on a decidedly non-luxe bowl of Rice Krispies each morning, is self-effacing and reflective at the breakfast table but once he hit the slopes, he’s a staggeringly accomplished skier who moves like a jackrabbit on Red Bull.

Bighorn is impressive but it’s not like the overblown ego houses that you see in Aspen. Okay, so it’s not small either. But every square foot has been carefully planned and designed. It’s timber peg, using Douglas fir beams and alder. There are enormous windows bringing in the mountains views of the Monashee Range across the Columbia River. There are three living levels, linked by a massive oak staircase that runs through the center of the house. The living room has a three-story ceiling and a stone fireplace with the requisite Bighorn sheep head.

My bedroom at Bighorn

The eight bedrooms are all ensuite, all laid out differently, and some have gas fireplaces and views across to Mt Begbie. There’s an iPad for your personal use and you will find your clothes neatly folded even if you left them in a heap as you rushed out to go skiing, as is my habit.

The lower living area has a spa with a small indoor pool, two treatment rooms, and yet another living room, this one outfitted with a snooker table. There’s an enormous outdoor hot tub – a pool, really — designed for long soaks, sipping a Powerhouse Pale Ale and taking in those mountain views. There’s also a state of the art screening room with tiered couches. All of this for a single group of guests — 16 is the max – who assemble for a heli house party.

But the look is understated. It is a perfectly proportioned house, from the pair of wingback chairs that sit in the front hallway, a nod to great English country houses, and tartan fabric, leather trunks, antique ship lights and vintage maps here and there.

Chef Peter Hughes of Bighorn

A typical day at Bighorn? You graze through your morning multi-course breakfast – eggs, meats, cereals, fruits, smoothies – and handmade Bighorn Bangers courtesy of a local, Barry the Butcher.

“They have a gentle burp factor,” said Chef Peter. “About an hour later, in the chopper, you’ll remember and say, ‘Ooo, that was nice.’”

Fueled up, you pad downstairs to the boot room, large enough to easily accommodate all 16 people at once, as everyone removes their boots from the boot heater where they are perfectly toasty for the morning. Geared up, avalanche transceivers tested,  you walk outside and watch a Selkirk Tangiers helicopter fly along the Columbia River valley and then swoop in to land on the private heli pad while Ride of the Valkyries plays in your head. Buckled in, the helicopter rises and you find yourself deposited and clicking into your bindings within 15 minutes on the best powder skiing in the world. A small nimble helicopter like an A 6 can deliver you to virgin snows free of other skiers, lift lines, rules, regulations and subdivisions of trophy homes. You ski 1,500 or 2,000 vertical feet and the chopper is waiting for you at the bottom of the run. Repeat eight or nine times in a day. It’s instant gratification taken to ridiculous levels.

We skied wide open runs like West Coast Bowl and Ghost, moved on to Badger with its well-spaced trees, and then lunched atop the run called Sepac. It was soup and sandwiches and tea in a stiff breeze in waist-deep snow at the top of a glacier. Hey, it felt like the top of the world. Below us, the thick slabs atop the glacier were like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle tossed into a box, gleaming bits of the blue glacial ice glinting.

On a given day, our pilot had a choice of 300 potential landing places, over an area of several hundred square miles. The Selkirks and Monashee ranges give the Alps a run for their money in terms of scenery. In terms of snow, nothing but nothing beats BC powder.

Is there a downside to all of this jubilation? Well yes, it’s the fact that it’s essential to have a bank account as deep as a Selkirk snow drift to experience Bighorn. This is not an experience for the faint of wallet.

Sure, you can take a day to ski the massive but nascent Revelstoke ski resort, go snowcat skiing, or devote a day to soaking and spa. But for the big dogs who crave the scent of powder, it’s all about the stash of the gods on the peaks above and the whirlybird that comes straight to your doorstep.

Details:

Seven nights from $64,500 CAD for 16 guests, all-inclusive. Heli-skiing from $7,735 per person for a five day private charter.  778-786-8258; bighornrevelstoke.com

The post Bighorn: Downton Abbey on the Snow in Revelstoke, BC appeared first on Everett Potter's Travel Report.

Olympian Billy Kidd, showing the best way to tackle Steamboat's champagne powder

By William Triplett

In the middle of a ski season that has left a lot of North American resorts starved for snow, how lucky is this: The day I show up in Steamboat Springs in the Colorado Rockies, the mountain had just been buried the day before under 27 inches of fresh powder – setting a resort record for the most snowfall in a 24-hour period.

To boot, the massive storm went on to dump another 10 or so inches the next day, and only on the Steamboat area. No other resort in the state reported anything similar.

I’m from the East Coast, thus my experience with powder was limited, to say the least. I’d never really gotten what the fuss was about. But after a couple days knee-deep in the stuff, I got it. By turns (pun intended, sorry) light and airy but also demanding more stamina and different skills, Steamboat’s famous “Champagne Powder,” when I got the hang of it, made me feel like floating downhill at speed. I couldn’t get enough of it.

Not surprisingly, it drew hordes of powder hounds on a Monday to the slopes, according to Steamboat officials I talked to. On mountain, though, it was hard to tell how many bodies were about, probably because the mountain is so damn big – 165 trails crisscrossing almost 3,000 acres. And, once you ride up the main gondola, the resort spreads out over four peaks, each with its own set of lifts. Many of those lifts I was able to hop onto without a wait.

All that lovely snow wasn’t the only thing new in town. In the last couple years, Steamboat facilities have been getting a facelift. For instance, a brand new promenade joins together two previously separate slope-side base areas – Gondola Square and Torrian Plum Plaza. Instead of schlepping up to streets to go from one to the other, you can now stroll along the snow/ice-free promenade (it’s heated). The distance is shorter, the views much better.

There’s also One Steamboat Place, a toney new enclave right off of Gondola Square, offering deluxe condo residences as well as boutique shopping and a hip restaurant, the Truffle Pig (great for apres relaxation, I must say, and fairly reasonable). Up the slopes, on the gladed trails that have long been part of Steamboat’s storied reputation, the dead and dying trees that were starting to clutter things have been removed. I didn’t venture onto any of the trails, but those who did were whooping it up audibly.

Add in more than $15 million in improvements to Hayden Airport, mainly for a new arrivals area complete with another baggage claim carousel, and you’ve got a resort that’s looking pretty spiffed up as it approaches its 50th year in business.

Strawberry Park Hot Springs

Most every major resort has spas, but the other thing that makes this place special to me is that, well, they don’t call it Steamboat Springs for nothing – some 150 natural hot springs surround the area, many just a short drive away. I went to Strawberry Park Hot Springs, a collection of several pools that you might say are nestled in an Eden-like setting, had Eden been located in the mountains amid pine trees and rock slabs. The pools vary in temperature, the majority just slightly above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s quiet, remote, unlighted, and, after dark, clothing is optional. I was there around dusk on a snowy evening, and I spent most of my time resting against one of the rock walls of a pool, head back, eyes closed, and enjoying the flakes landing on my face.

Lodging abounds, of course, from pricey ski-in/out accommodations to budget hotel rooms. I stayed in the Steamboat Grand, also fairly new, situated just across the street from Gondola Square. Grand it is, looking a lot like an oversized mountain lodge, heavy on natural wood and stone decor along with a water fall in the lobby. My room was cozy, with a gas fireplace and a marvelous direct view of the mountain.

Laundry, one of the newest dining sports in Steamboat

Dining similarly runs the gamut, from small coffee shops and sandwich joints to upscale eateries. Laundry is the name of a new restaurant in town; the building was indeed a laundry around the turn of the previous century. It’s big on meat and fish with a nouvelle twist, and patrons are encouraged to share orders. Carl’s is a saloon/restaurant favored by a lot of locals. It takes its name from Carl Howelsen, a Norwegian Nordic skier who emigrated to Colorado in 1905 and is considered a pioneer of the sport in the U.S. Enjoy the ribs, a cold beer made locally, and the occasional bluegrass bands that play here.

My stay in Steamboat was brief – three days – but memorable, due mostly to what I’ve already told you. But what really made the trip special was the chance not only to meet but ski with one of the heroes of my youth. Billy Kidd, a two-time Olympian and former World Cup champion, has made his home at Steamboat since the 1970s. Other resorts boast similar stars you can ski with – but usually for a price. Billy regularly hosts a free clinic for anyone who meets him at the top of the gondola. There’s a sign that tells you whether he’ll be there on any particular day. Show up at 1:00, and he’ll give pointers to whoever shows up.

I skied with him alone for nearly two hours on a Wednesday afternoon. Funny, personable, and immensely patient, he helped me with what he says so many skiers still get wrong – the basics. “Do you just want survival tips, how-to-get-down-the-mountain kinds of things,” he asks at the start with a smile, “or do you want to learn how to ski like an Olympian?”

Talk about luck!

Visit Steamboat

  William Triplett is a contributor to The Wall Street Journal  and the former DC bureau chief for Variety. Triplett has written about various destinations, from Scotland’s Inverness and Paris’s Pere Lachaise Cemetery to Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon and the Beatles’ old haunts in Hamburg. His work has appeared in the The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Daily Beast and Capital Style.

The post Steamboat: Champagne Powder, Olympian Tracks appeared first on Everett Potter's Travel Report.

A bobsled is not a roller coaster. Photo by Hilary Nangle.

By Dalma Heyn

On a chairlift at Park City a few weeks ago I sat between two young vacationing North Carolina businessmen about to take their first ski run of the day. It was a perfect day: Lots of snow; sunny but not too. They were talking about a bobsled ride that afternoon. They and eight other guys from their firm had laid down $200 apiece (as you can, too) for the privilege of hurtling down the same ice track the Olympic bobsled teams did in 2002.  (Park City’s track, in fact, is the only one in the world that lets passengers start at the same point as the Olympic athletes do.)  “I did it last evening,” I volunteered softly.

“Omigod,” one of the men said through his blue bandana-covered face: “Was it amazing?”

Yes. It was.

“Amazing, like a superfast rollercoaster?”

No, not like a rollercoaster. The men were staring at me now, awaiting specific description of what, if not like the fastest rollercoaster in Christendom, it was like.

“Amazing, as in…” I started, and then took leave of my vocabulary, “as in….” I grabbed the only word I could find “…as in intense. More than intense, really. Intensely intense. Intensively intense.”

The men laughed, not because I was pathetically inarticulate but because the mere fact of my nonsensically tongue-tied outburst made them crave that intensely intense intensity even more.

I’ll try again for you, my heart having regained its normal rhythm. The bobsled differs from a roller coaster ride first because it’s not on a track, it’s on an ice chute with walls roughly 18 inches high. Mostly, though, the difference between the bobsled experience and that of other thrilling sports has to do with the Gs.  The G-force is the effect of gravity (the G) on any accelerating object. It’s one thing to just go straight down along with gravity at the speed it dictates. As Wikipedia puts it, “The 1g force on an object sitting on the earth’s surface is caused by mechanical force exerted in the upward direction by the ground, keeping the object from going into free-fall.” It’s quite another to fight gravity by whipping down, up or sideways faster than–and against– gravity.

Hitting 80 miles per hour on the ice in Utah. Photo by Bruce Wildstein.

More illuminating than Wikipedia is Bob Perkins, businessman, serious skier, and former instructor pilot in the T-38A, a twin engine supersonic jet that’s the trainer version of the F-5 fighter. He knows from Gs.

He laughed when I asked him why I and the two men (not including the driver) in my sled were stunned when we got out.

“Many reasons. First, and maybe most important, is the illusion that because the bobsled itself is on runners, and it runs on ice, it must be a smooth ride–like a figure skater gliding along.” He slaps the kitchen counter hard, fast and loud, bap bap bap bap, reminding me of that first staggering moment when, gathering speed and hitting that first turn, the bap bap bap bap began in earnest. “This is flat-out wrong. You bounce around like crazy.” (I found that Vonetta Flowers, who won the women’s bobsled event with Jill Bakhen in 2002, turned out to be pregnant at the time of their gold-medal Olympic run—and a few months later, miraculously, delivered twins!)

The ice walls that keep the sleds from flying off that choppy chute and which can reach as high as 20 feet, often with an overhang for protection, are harrowing: the bobsled rocks back and forth around those curves fifteen times in one minute. The six of us who occupied two four-person sleds (each sled has a driver and three occupants behind him), had been given careful instructions about how to sit. Upright, at ninety degrees, and not even slightly forward or backward, lest those 5Gs—the same as what Olympic bobsledders experience, although they go around 90 mph and we at 80) buckle you. We were to lift our shoulders as high as possible to bury our necks inside them, turtlelike; then, to press our forearms against the sides of the sled with all our might–to help keep our bodies steady and at 90-degrees, to the extent that we could, throughout the ride. This upright position, neck buried, not only offsets the force of the 5Gs on us but also helps our driver: it’s essential that the three people behind him  be in a unified position, weight centered, helmets in a row– lest the sled’s weight shift in a way he couldn’t control.

“Second,” Bob explains, “you often get pushed up by negative G’s and pulled down by positive G forces.  G forces reflect changes in direction.  In an airplane, if you start to climb, you pull G’s.  The faster the initiation of the climb [the rate of change, in technical terms] the more G’s.  If an airplane turns to the right or left, you get asymmetrical [or rolling] G’s. So, as the bobsled bounces along, riders experience both positive and negative G’s. As it twists and turns, it gets asymmetrical G’s.  Pretty tough!”

My small size, by the way, makes things tougher, Gs-wise. “You’re sitting in a space built for a 240-pound man, so you slosh around, being jerked back and forth by the constantly changing G forces. If you weigh one hundred  pounds, two negative G’s push you up as if you weighed fifty pounds. When that suddenly becomes four positive G’s, that’s like four hundred pounds going down. No wonder you get black and blue!”

The early days of bobsledding in Europe.

The sport of bobsledding began in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in the late 1800s. It spread rapidly and by 1914, when the first European championships took place at St. Moritz, more than a hundred bobsled runs dotted the European landscape. By 1924, the sport was introduced to the Olympics at Chamonix, France.  The two-man bobsled was developed in the U.S.  The sleds—which were once just wooden toboggans, are now made of sterner stuff to the tune of $50,000 to 100,000 apiece, minimum.

Just one more distinction between the bobsled and the roller coaster. You can’t see anything around you, what with your neck tucked in and your attempt to sit up and look straight ahead into the person’s helmet in front of you.  “Your body loses that reference point,” Bob says. “Shut your eyes in a car [with someone else driving] on a twisting road…..you’ll throw up pretty quickly.”

I didn’t. And I had the extraordinary good fortune to be taking my aftershocked body to the Stein Ericksen Lodge, where—if any place in the ski world can restore you, no matter what shape you’re in when you arrive, this is, famously, it. The ski-in, ski-out comfort, the quiet luxury, the hot tub and jacuzzi in my suite, the constantly groomed runs, the superb cuisine—that alone would have done it.  But I ventured over to see the newly redecorated 20,000 foot spa (see Gerrie Summers’ January 17^th blogpost here, in Everett Potter’s Travel Report, for more on this). There I met Brian, the genius massage therapist who had helped heal a colleague of mine who’d suffered altitude sickness the day before. He took one look at me, and I said, “Bobsled.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Intense, right?”

****

Make your bobsled reservations online at www.UtahOlympicLegacy.com, or by calling 435-658-4206. Bobsled sessions sell out fast, so reserve asap. Public bobsled rides on ice are available through March 17^th; once the ice melts, Park City opens summer bobsled rides. These, which are on wheels, on a cement track, begin the second week of June through Labor Day. And me, I’d book Brian in advance at 435-645-6475. For reservations at the Stein Ericksen Lodge, call 855-453-1302.

   Dalma Heyn is the bestselling author of The Erotic Silence of the American Wife; Marriage Shock: The Transformation of Women into Wives; and Drama Kings: The Men Who Drive Strong Women Crazy, which have been published in 34 countries and are now available on all ebook platforms. Her travel and culture articles and essays have appeared in Travel & Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, Elle and Diversion. Visit her website.

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Yellowstone is paradise for cross country skiers.

By David McKay Wilson

Yellowstone National Park has emerged as a world-class destination for cross-country skiers who yearn for high-altitude touring in and around the world’s first national park.

On a visit in mid-February, the powder was dry and light – the kind that provides cross-country skiers with plenty of grab for their kick, and a surface of silky smoothness for their glide.

I’d come to Yellowstone, hoping to rediscover the sport I’d learned 40 years ago in Norway. But it had been more than 20 years since I’d done any serious touring on the skinny skis.

The gals at Free Heel and Wheel in West Yellowstone, Mt. put me at ease the moment I walked in door our first morning. The town – simply known to local as “West” – lies on Yellowstone’s western boundary. So the park’s trail system starts a block away at the Riverside Trail, which runs along the Madison River – one of the park’s many waterways that stay ice-free in the deep of winter, warmed by water from the park’s geo-thermal features.

The 2004 decision by the National Park Service to strictly regulate snowmobiles in the park to up to 318 a day, and require the snow sleds to be equipped with cleaner four-stroke engines, has made Yellowstone much more enticing for cross-country skiers.

Leading us into the park was Melissa Alder, one Free Heel’s owners, who with her college chum, Kelli Sanders, founded the shop in 1995 when cross-country had grabbed a toehold on the park’s edge.  The shop doubles as a coffee shop, so after our four-mile morning warm-up, we came back for a spicy chicken enchilada and a warm cup of zebra mocha coffee. I then traded in the waxless Rossignols that rent for $20/day for a pair of high-performance Atomics, which Alder promised would add some oomph in my kick that afternoon in the Rendezvous Ski Trails, just down Yellowstone Avenue.

The trails are known for some of North America’s earliest snow, and during Thanksgiving week, draw up to 3,000 skiers for a weeklong festival that kicks off the season for racers who descend on West Yellowstone to train.  That festival also draws families and recreational skiers for clinics and the continent’s premier late-fall skiing. The Yellowstone Rendezvous Race in early March, part of the American Ski Marathon series, draws another huge weekend crowd. And while the event ends the race season, the trails typically stay open through May.

On the trail in Yellowstone

The Rendezvous Trails wind through rolling terrain, the kind that’s just right for cross-country skiing. You have to work a bit on a few uphills, but the downhill sections aren’t so steep as to cause issues. At Rendezvous, in a forest of lodge-pole pine, I rediscovered the wonder of the cross-country rhythm – letting the kick drive me forward, feeling the pole plant, not rushing the motion to find the sweet-spot of the glide.

We reconnoitered at Rendezvous the next day, joining 140 others for the second annual Taste of the Trails event, which featured tasty offerings on food stops along the trails – dates wrapped in bacon, a savory tomato-dill soup, hearty quinoa salad, and the Blondie I felt I’d earned for dessert after skiing 10 kilometers that day.

Snow Coach in Yellowstone. Photo by David McKay Wilson

Following three nights at the West Yellowstone Holiday Inn, and great meals at Serenity Bistro and Madison Crossing, we headed into the park on a snow coach – a transport vehicle operated by the park’s lodging concessionaire, Xanterra. The heated coaches, with cozy seats and big windows, look like a cross between a small school bus and an Army tank, with skis in front to steer it along snow-covered roads. We headed for Old Faithful Snow Lodge, the well-appointed hotel built in 1999, with recycled post-and-beam construction, succulent bison steak for dinner, and a cellist who played dreamy classical pieces in the lobby. Winter rooms are $206/night.

The skiing at Old Faithful was superb, giving skiers the opportunity to view the extensive geothermal activity, which bubbled to the atmosphere through geysers, steam vents, and fumaroles. We took the Lone Star Geyser Trail, following a groomed trail on a steady, gradual climb along the Firehole River and up into the forest. We arrived just as the geyser erupted, sending a plume of steam, and as whiff of sulfur – into the crisp winter air.

Rendezvous Trails

Our tour took us the next day to Mammoth Hot Springs, near the park’s northern boundary. There we stayed in the historic Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, one of the region’s best bargains, with rooms with bathrooms $117 a night, those with shared bathrooms just $87.

After four days of cross-country skiing on the well-groomed trails, it was time to test our mettle in the high-altitude back-country. The sun shone. Four inches of light powder had settled as we began our climb up Snow Pass, a winding 1.5 mile-climb through a forest of Douglas Fir. It was a heart-thumping ascent, with my friend, Alan, leading the way. At the pass, Mt. Sepulcher rose to 9,600 feet to the west as we met the Glen Creek Trail. We glided east as the afternoon sun cast long shadows along the expansive snowfield, where a bison herd had left tracks the previous day.

Now it was all coming together, that rhythm, the glide and kick and pole, all together, propelling me with surprising alacrity. Atop the plateau, we were alone, in a wilderness vast enough to support bison and the wolf packs that hunt them. Then I paused to catch my breath. I drank in the silence. It felt like we were on top of the world. But the lengthening shadows interrupted my reverie. The sun was setting, and it was time to descend.

For more info:

Yellowstone Lodging-

Freeheel & Wheel

Holiday Inn West Yellowstone

  David McKay Wilson has written on travel over the past 30 years as a freelance journalist, with his travel stories appearing in The Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, Hartford Courant, New Haven Advocate, and Gannett News Service. An avid cyclist and skier, Wilson enjoys vacationing in the mountains and by the sea. His articles on public affairs have appeared regularly in The New York Times. He’s currently the nation’s top freelance writer for university alumni magazines, with his work appearing in publications at 81 colleges and universities, including Harvard, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown and the University of Chicago.

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Mammoth, CA

By Catherine Streeter

Being an Easterner, I’d never heard of Mammoth when I moved to LA.  But for Los Angelenos—at least, the serious skiing kind—it’s ground zero. And you can’t argue with the numbers: 3,500 acres of skiable terrain, 3,100 foot  vertical drop, an average annual snowfall of 400 inches and, with a top elevation of over 11,000 feet, as well as one of the longest ski seasons in North America. With this kind of size, there’s something for everyone–  from beginners to pros — including nine terrain parks and an Olympic-size half-pipe. Located on the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada, it’s just a five-hour drive from LA—and a stunning one at that—or a little over an hour in the air if you catch one of the new daily flights. (Air service is also available out of Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco and San José.)

Mammoth also has great accommodations. Among them is Snowcreek Resort, where I was ensconced at an upscale vacation rental. At the eastern edge of town, the multi-faceted development has been evolving since the 1970’s, when a local construction worker purchased the wide-open tract of land with 360° mountain views with an eye to developing a “mountain retreat community”.  Snowcreek now encompasses 450 acres, including a nine-hole golf course, condominiums, townhouses, and, most recently, The Lodges at Snowcreek—luxurious two- and three-bedroom homes ranging from 1,856 to 3,418 square feet.

Mammoth Mountain village.

In spite of all the trappings of a proper, world-class ski resort, what makes Mammoth special is its down-home vibe. This isn’t Aspen. There is a notable dearth of chic boutiques and fur-clad ski bunnies. Mammoth is one of those ski towns where it feels like everyone is actually there to ski. Though the mountain reportedly enjoys 300 days of sunshine a year, it can also experience bone-chilling wind—and the corresponding “wind buff” that locals will gleefully tell you can make for fresh tracks every run. This is a place where many of the people serving and working grew up here, and the town’s year-round population of 8,000 all seem connected. In summer, elite athletes descend to train in the high altitude—which might explain the otherwise-incongruous 30,000-square-foot Snowcreek Athletic Club. This is the skier’s ski town. The anti-resort resort, if you like.

Petra's Bistro

Which isn’t to say it doesn’t boast great restaurants and upscale amenities.  It does. I had one of the best massages of my life under the care of the Double Eagle Spa’s goddess-like Ursula (that heated bed, those gifted hands!). The facilities at the Athletic Club are seriously impressive for the $20 drop-in fee. At Petra’s Bistro, memorable cuisine—such as the outstanding duck confit appetizer—is complemented by a lovingly curated wine list that includes 28 wines by the glass. I wasn’t able to get to the Lakefront Restaurant at Tamarack Lodge on my visit, but there wasn’t a person in town who didn’t speak of it in reverential tones.  On the casual end, Burgers Restaurant’s homemade barbecue sauce and mustard elevate the already-outstanding burgers, not to mention ribs, chicken, and chili. (Mud pie is the signature dessert, but for my money, I’d take the vanilla shake.) Breakfasts at The Stove are as delectable as they are generous.

Though 2010-11 saw near-record snowfall here, Mammoth is among the many U.S. ski resorts suffering from the unusual weather patterns this season.  But it finally arrived, so the President’s Week getaway looks promising indeed.

Visit Mammoth

  Catherine Streeter spent more than a decade guiding and researching luxury cycling and walking trips for Butterfield & Robinson.  She applies that experience to her work as a brand and marketing consultant for travel companies, and has penned travel and lifestyle articles for the likes of SKY, Aspen Magazine, Indagare, and Vogue (Brazil). A film aficionado, Streeter has also written numerous screenplays, with an option under her belt and more on the horizon.

The post Discovering Mammoth: The Elusive Charms of California’s Highest Ski Resort appeared first on Everett Potter's Travel Report.

Jackson Hole: Superb skiing, and the views aren't bad

By David McKay Wilson

On the third day, it snowed.

It wasn’t an epic Jackson Hole storm, like the ones that dumped 557 inches at the Wyoming resort the previous year, or the storm that began as we departed, and left more than five feet on the mountain before it ended. But in the snow-starved winter of 2012, when mountain bikers in mid-January were making turns at Squaw Valley, the low-pressure system that brought a few inches to the mountain’s upper slopes provided just enough cover to provide a taste of Jackson in full snow dress.

While there was no shooting down Corbet’s Couloir or darting through the chute called Meet Your Maker, we discovered a powder stash in the trees in Wally’s World, made sweeping turns down the Cirque, and found a soft blanket of white stuff in Tensleep Bowl, where I found my rhythm in what my father liked to call “ballroom skiing.”

We’d come to Wyoming to test our Eastern ski legs on the mountains out West. With 4,139 vertical feet of terrain, and a $31 million aerial tram put up in 2008 that whisks you to the summit in just nine minutes, Jackson Hole had long been on my bucket list of skiing destinations.

With so little snow in the Northeast, I’d done most of my training on my road bike, knowing I’d need considerable muscle tone in my 58-year-old legs so I could chase my two teenage sons and their cousin down some of North America’s toughest terrain.

As my boys become teens, these skiing adventures have grown progressively more fun, and more demanding, as they’ve developed their skiing mojo, and lusted for the steeps.  Skiing is one of the few recreational pursuits that families can enjoy together, over extended periods. Skiing together all day can cement bonds, and provide the kind of outdoor challenge that builds character, confidence and endurance. I declared victory after making it to 4 p.m. each day.

Jackson's town square

Lodging runs the gamut – from $37 for a bunk at The Hostel at the mountain base, to $1,249 for a one-bedroom suite the Four Seasons Jackson Hole.

We stayed in a comfy three-bedroom unit at the Nez Perce condominiums in Teton Village, which rent for $460 a night, and was serviced by a shuttle that takes you to the mountain base. Across the street, we soaked our weary muscles in the outdoor hot-tub and watched the clouds turn from mauve to orange one night as the sun set behind the mountain and Venus rose sparkling the West.

Dining options abound at the mountain – from sausage-stuffed olives and Kurobuta pork chops at Il Villagio Osteria to the Couloir at the top of the Bridger Gondola. Lunch can hit the spot: braised bison sliders with roasted garlic-horseradish aioli, roasted golden beet and apple salad, and grilled natural chicken Cubano, with shaved apple, caramelized onions, melted brie, topped with wild arugula. My boys stuck to the hefty Couloir Burger, with its juicy Kobe beef, smoked bacon, and Ballard cheddar.

Upon our arrival, talk quickly turned to snow, and the lack thereof in most of the United States. The coast-to-coast snow drought in December through mid-January had skiers across the nation making tracks for the northwest corner of Wyoming, where Jackson Hole and Grand Targhee boasted some of the nation’s best snow cover.

It has proved a bonanza for the Wyoming tourist industry, with powder hounds we met from Colorado, Utah and California abandoning their home hills for a holiday in the Tetons.

Jackson Hole's tram

Grand Targhee, the resort outpost high up on the western face of Wyoming’s Teton Range provided an unexpected delight on our trip’s second day. It’s a breathtaking 70-minute drive from Jackson over the Teton Pass, and up a winding road to the resort, perched at 7,800 feet.

Those feeling the pinch from Jackson Hole’s $95 lift-ticket can find solace at Targhee, paying just $69 for a day on the slopes, with an array of high-speed quad lifts to cover its 2,100 vertical rise with alacrity. If you didn’t rent a car, hop the Grand Targhee Express shuttle from Jackson Hole for $95, which includes a lift ticket.

The wide-open bowls are mostly blue runs – broad open expanses that are plenty steep to get you moving, but gentle enough to make intermediates into heroes on powder days.

We favored the north-facing shots off the Headwall, where the snow on a run called Bad was particularly good. Lines were non-existent on the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. By mid-afternoon, my 13-year-old-son, Tom, was looking for adventure.

He’d heard about the peak called Mary’s Nipple, which rises to close to 10,000 feet on the resort’s eastern boundary, with its steep bowl offering enticing opportunities and a spectacular view of the Grand Teton beyond. To get there, you ski from the Dreamcatcher lift, and then climb 20 minutes up a ridge that turns steep near the top.

“Can we do Mary’s?” Tom asked with serious intent, and his boyish smirk.

What’s a Dad to do when his 13-year-old declares he’d like to climb Mary’s Nipple? Here was a chance for bragging rights upon his return to middle school. Here was an opportunity for him to test his mettle. And here was my time to see what I had left in the tank for my son in mid-afternoon.

We hoisted our skis to our shoulders, and Tom followed me on the climb, moving slow and steady, in the frozen-over boot tracks left by earlier climbers.  A step off the hardened path sank us into thigh-deep snow, just as a powerful wind-gust peppered us with icy pellets.

“It’s scary, Dad,” said Tom, as he struggled to his feet. “But I’m not scared.”

We rested for a spell at the top, then clicked on our skis. Tom took the lead, traversing along the cornice to the north-facing wall, where a foot of a steep field of powder lay, untouched. Tom had found his edge, which alpine vacations can lead you to. He had the legs, and the moxie, to experience the scary. And Tom wasn’t scared.

Grand Targhee: www.grandtarghee.com

Jackson Hole: www.jacksonhole.com

Targhee Express:

http://www.jacksonholealltrans.com/targheeexpress.html

David McKay Wilson has written on travel over the past 30 years as a freelance journalist, with his travel stories appearing in The Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, Hartford Courant, New Haven Advocate, and Gannett News Service. An avid cyclist and skier, Wilson enjoys vacationing in the mountains and by the sea. His articles on public affairs have appeared regularly in The New York Times. He’s currently the nation’s top freelance writer for university alumni magazines, with his work appearing in publications at 81 colleges and universities, including Harvard, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown and the University of Chicago.

The post To Jackson Hole, In Search of Snow appeared first on Everett Potter's Travel Report.

The skier's bible, back when

by Tom Passavant

A hot day in New York City, summer 1978. My friend Jim Petersen walks into my office at Playboy magazine. “I hear the guys downstairs at Playboy Press want to do some lifestyle books. Let’s go talk to them.” Jim pitches Charlie, the editorial director, an idea for a book of sex advice, based on 10 years of being the Playboy adviser. Charlie turns him down. I pitch a travel guide to the Caribbean. No dice. As we turn to leave, Charlie asks, “Got any other ideas?”

Off the top of his head, Jim replies: “Sure. How about a guide to the top 25 ski resorts in North America?” “Fine,” says Charlie. “Give me a budget.” Out in the hallway, we make up a contract. We ask for, and get, $25,000 and two winters off work to do research.

Fast forward to mid-December 1978. We have just completed out first bit of “research” at Crested Butte. We are numb from very deep powder and very late evenings — boogie nights with the locals, featuring exploits that are eventually deemed too outrageous even for a book with “Playboy” in the title. Now, we are about to be decanted into a tiny aircraft for the 10-minute flight to Aspen, for which Crested Butte was supposed to be a warm-up.

Aspen proves to be even crazier. Jim’s notes begin with, “Our Father, who art in Aspen, Hollywood be thy name …” One morning we’re riding a triple chair with a guy with deeply bloodshot eyes. “Man, what a party last night,” he raves. “The guys from Playboy. Blondes. Booze. Coke. Indiscriminate sex.” Err … wait a minute. We’re the guys from Playboy, and we weren’t at the party. At least, not that we recall.

Eventually we learn to pace ourselves. One problem is that although I am a semicompetent skier and Jim is considerably better than that, when we show up at, say, Snowbird or Jackson Hole, our local hosts send us directly up the gondola with the head of ski patrol and a couple of former Olympians, and the only option is ski or die. Other resorts pair us with beautiful women guides, who pose challenges of another sort. (The statute of limitations has run out, but we remain silent to this day.)

Our first winter finally over, we head back to the office to recover and try to decipher our notes. Our style is Hunter S. Thompson meets Arthur Frommer — wild anecdotes (all of them true) and breathless ski descriptions followed by places to eat and stay. We have developed a list of questions that unlock the secrets of each resort. Ask locals about their fi nest day, and you get the reason they became locals. Ask where they go on their birthday or to impress a hot date, and you get the best restaurants and bars. When we ask a guy in Jackson Hole for the ratio of males to females, he replies, “Nine.” Nine percent? “No, nine females.”

We’re also responsible for paying for the book’s numerous photos, and we quickly realize we’re unlikely to capture any iconic images ourselves during our drive-by visits. So we cut a deal with the best local photographers at each resort: After we pay our expenses, we’ll give them all of the rest of our advance. Not one objects.

Our second winter is mellower. We spend time in New England, then California. We spend three weeks on the road, with one week back in the office to answer mail and do laundry. By late spring we’re at Snowbird and Alta, skiing epic, whiteout powder for days, falling through elevator shafts full of fluff, thunder booming above us on the invisible ridgelines.

Finally we’re done. Cooked. Wrung out. Eventually the book appears, to general praise among hard-core skiers, and total indifference from the bookbuying public. But then a funny thing happens: Playboy’s Guide to Ultimate Skiing becomes a sort of underground classic. The ski magazines adopt some of our writing tics, especially the cheeky captions and letit-all-hang-out narrative. One day the famous novelist James Salter (Downhill Racer, etc.) appears in my office, introduces himself politely, and asks if he might purchase our book. No way; I give him a copy.

And wait — it gets better. The friends we made on our travels are still friends. Twenty years later, I moved to Aspen. Jim — his love long unrequited — is finally moving to Colorado this winter.

What began as a heat-of-the-moment fling has somehow become an abiding, lifelong love affair with the mountains. And somehow, we owe it all to Playboy.

Tom Passavant is a former editor-in-chief of Diversion magazine. Now a freelance travel and food writer based in Colorado and Hawaii, his work has appeared in Aspen Magazine, Gourmet, Four Seasons Magazine, Town & Country Travel, ForbesTraveler.com, Ski, Powder, Luxury Living, and many other places. He is the co-author of “Playboy’s Guide to Ultimate Skiing.” A former president of the New York Travel Writers Association, Passavant has won a Lowell Thomas Award for his travel writing and has served as judge for the James Beard Journalism Awards. See more of Tom’s work at TomPassavant.com.

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Descending the Banana Funnel at Crested Butte

By David McKay Wilson

Since my arrival in the Rockies in late March, I’d peered up at Crested Butte Mountain, that 12,161-foot peak with some of Colorado’s most challenging ski terrain, and dreamed of skiing down the chutes that spill down its western face.

On the last day of our trip, the mountain’s snow safety team dropped the ropes and I headed down a steep chute called Banana Funnel, which grows narrower and narrower as you descend, with a steep rock wall rising on skier’s right. My legs were strong, the snow was forgiving, and my crisp turns brought me down into the snowfield they call the Hockey Rink, where the gentler terrain encouraged wide sweeping turns.

I spent the rest of the afternoon traversing along that face, and heading down trails called Peel and Forest, and then finding my way back to the base area.

It capped a three-day trip to one of Colorado’s premier resorts, high in the heart of the Rockies, with its base elevation at 9,375, which makes it among the West’s highest. Perched in the Elk Mountains, Crested Butte is accessible from Gunnison-Crested Butte Regional Airport, or a five-hour drive from Denver.

Our three-day powder fest ended came near the end of the 2010-11 ski season. The mountain, like most in Colorado, could have used some of the snow in December and early January, 2012, as clear sunny skies prevailed, and skiers stuck mostly to groomed runs where the mountain’s snowmaking guns had laid down some white stuff.

The resort is just up the hill from the town of Crested Butte, an old coal-mining town that has retained its charm, and supports a year-round population of 1,600. It’s a town that loves a parade – be it the Flauschink to mark the end of the ski season, the July 4 parade, or the impromptu gathering this past April, to celebrate a mining firm’s decision to withdraw from a controversial plan to mine molybdenum from Mount Emmons.

Dogwood Cocktail Cabin

Many of the old century-old structures have been restored, including one with a second-floor outhouse. We stopped by the Dogwood Cocktail Cabin, an old mining cabin at 309 Third St. with snow piled up over the first floor windows that’s been transformed into a dimly lit lounge with an edge of funk. At the Dogwood, I savored a Beetnik martini with ginger, a deep-red drink concocted with vodka infused with beets.

After cocktails, we headed down Elk Avenue for The Secret Stash, an upscale pizza restaurant where we sat on pillows around a table, kicked back, and sampled such delicacies as The Notorious F.I.G. – a pizza topped with mozzarella, blue cheese, prosciutto, and fresh figs – and another called the Booty Call, a pizza piled high with meat and cheese.

Crested Butte is just 40 miles from Aspen, but that’s as the crow flies, or the back-country skier skis. You need to cross two, 12,000-foot peaks to get there, which hundreds of back-country racers in the annual Grand Traverse did the stormy night we arrived. The racers, who set out in two-person teams – headed out with head lamps at midnight, and arrived in Aspen the following morning in one of skiing’s hallowed endurance races.

We kept within bounds during our stay, and there was plenty of challenge for our East Coast ski legs. It was late March, and we’d booked the trip, hoping for three days of spring skiing in the Colorado sun. Instead we had three days of snow, with powder stashes everywhere. There were wide-open intermediate trails for carving, and expert terrain up on the Headwall and the North Face that proved wonderfully challenging during our stay.

Elevation Hotel, Crested Butte

We stayed at the Elevation Hotel, in a room with a sixth-floor balcony that overlooked the Red Lady Express Lift, and the sound stage for that weekend’s FestEVOL, which featured the popular rock band, O.A.R. Downstairs, at the restaurant, 9380 Prime, where the Rocky Mountain IPA flowed by the tap, skiers dined on hand-cut steaks, and I savored my Mediterranean Salad, with spinach, roasted tomatoes and peppers and feta cheese.

By 9 p.m., hotel guests still gathered around the fire pit. One Texan, Mary Grayhart, who’d owned a condo here and spent up to four months a year at the resort, says she preferred Crested Butte over glitzier Colorado resorts, like Aspen or Vail.

“It’s more southern, more laid back here,” she says. “It’s not the place to wear your fur. And if your ski outfit doesn’t match here, it really doesn’t matter.”

To learn more, visit Crested Butte

David McKay Wilson has written on travel over the past 30 years as a freelance journalist, with his travel stories appearing in The Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, Hartford Courant, New Haven Advocate, and Gannett News Service. An avid cyclist and skier, Wilson enjoys vacationing in the mountains and by the sea. His articles on public affairs have appeared regularly in The New York Times. He’s currently the nation’s top freelance writer for university alumni magazines, with his work appearing in publications at 81 colleges and universities, including Harvard, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown and the University of Chicago.

The post Crested Butte: Ski Steep & Deep appeared first on Everett Potter's Travel Report.