txaggie02 said:
10andBOUNCE said:
Curious what your sales pitch for Winter Park would be. Never have skied it, even when we lived in CO. Kind of want to try a new mountain in the next year or two.
I know this wasn't directed at me, but we have been to WP the past 6 years, so I'll go ahead and give my two cents as well.
- I have a million Southwest frequent flyer miles, along with the companion pass, so flying somewhere without coming out of pocket is a huge plus. Denver is an easy 1.5 hours from WP. There's multiple ski resorts that are very challenging to get to when flying SW.
- WP has an incredible ski school and a great family environment around the resort.
- WP lift tickets are very fair in price.
- Snow has been plentiful each of the past 6 years.
- Lodging is very reasonably priced.
- WP has tons of good blue/black runs for my son and I. Given that we have been there multiple years now, we know the slopes like the back of our hand, which is extremely beneficial. At 10 years old, he can literally get on the gondola at the base and knows the 2-3 lifts and runs to get to the top and all the way back down.
- We did enjoy going to Breck a few years ago, but it's massive. I really prefer the smaller ski towns where you can actually get into a restaurant or brewery without having to wait an hour.
- Lots of activities to do off the mountain......tubing, snowmobiling, ice fishing, dog sledding, etc.
And to add on AggieBoomin's notes.
For my sales pitch, it can be quite lengthy and I'm sure there can be lots of "yeah buts" or conjecture to my logic.
First, I basically learned to ski there and my dad has been skiing there since the 80s when there was a parking lot at the bottom of the hill and a single lift house/ restaurant. I've watched the place grow from that to having a village, to adding high speed 6 chairs, to "the 7 territories" and beyond. So there's a bunch of nostalgia to it.
However, it is definitely not the only place I've skied. I've skied Telly, Breck, Vail, BC, Loveland, ABasin, Crested Butte, and Wolf Creek in CO. Utah, Tahoe, Montana and beyond. Canada, Switzerland, Italy and Germany. Not being a braggart because there are people on here that have skied much more than I - I just say that because I've seen other places than just "what I'm familiar with"
So here are the reasons why I like it vs. other mountains for us.
Getting There: Flying or Driving - it is the closest ski resort to Denver and is well before Eisenhower tunnel. We made it from DEN airport to our townhouse last week in under 2 hours. "yeah yeah park city is 40 minute drive" yes, I know that. We're in DFW - there are a million flight options on both AA and SWA and always pretty darn cheap. There's also a very affordable airport shuttle that's local to Fraser Valley called Home James transportation. I think it's like $50 each way for airport to front door pickup/dropoff.
Plentiful lodging, on and off the hill,
with access. Winter Park has by far the most comprehensive shuttle system I've seen for a ski area. You can be 10+ miles away and have a bus drop you within 100 yards of your place every half hour. This leads to LOADS of options for lodging. Now, that being said, the amount of lodging built in the Fraser Valley in the last 10 years is astounding. Once Ikon bought it, the place just absolutely blew up. We used to rent a 4BR House in town for $2,500 for the week. The week. I bet that same property goes for $5k+ now. Easily. The town is so accessible that I've actually never stayed at the base in ski-in, ski-out. Always in town. I require a private hot tub for Apres
Now, does it have a Ritz like Beaver Creek? Or a massive Marriott Property right at the base of the slope? No. But I like that (even though I'm Titanium for Marriott). It keeps the masses away and keeps the town a "ski town" and not some over-commercialized place for housewives to parade around in (although I do see more of it there these days). Granted, there's certainly a vibe that people like - just not what I really care for when I go with family. If I want a guys' trip or couples trip? Yeah, Vail, Park City, Whistler, Tahoe - go for it.
Affordability - If you book lift tickets in advance, they can be had for ~$150/day. This still feels like robbery since it wasn't that long ago they were <$100. IKON pass led to increases. They offer a Winter Park only season pass for like $500.
Ski Town vs. Commercialized - Even though the amount of lodging and restaurants has grown tremendously, it's still nothing like an Aspen, Breck, Vail or BC. It's still a small ski town with a few local bars and like 10 restaurants. There's 1 Safeway in Fraser and I've heard it's the most expensive one in the country next to Hawaii (I believe that!) There's a cute little sledding park in the middle of town. A neat brewery, a distillery, and a handful of other shops. There's even a very oldschool lodge in town that offers included breakfast, dinner (ran by a family), communal game room and living space, and private transportation to the mountain - think like a 1950's style ski lodge.
The Mountain. This place is big with lots of terrain. Winter Park is #11 in skiable acreage in the US. And #5 in Colorado. Barely behind Keystone. It has bumps, it has groomers, it has trees, it has chutes. For boarders, there are definitely some areas with crappy cat walks but, meh who cares I don't board and no one in my family does. The geography/geology of the mountain allows for the skiers to be spread out.
What does that mean? For example: Heavenly, California side. AWESOME runs with views of the lake. 10 runs feed into a single lift. If it's crowded and you wanna run laps on those awesome cruisers all day, you're standing in line. Breck is the absolute worst of this. Peak 7, 8, 9. All feed into single lifts. The bottom of 8 (maybe it's 7?) is just dumb. Ski school area also gets insanely packed over there.
At Winter Park, there are only 3 lifts at the base of the mountain(s). 6person hi-speed super gauge, Gondola (10 ppl) and gemini (4 person hi-speed) that takes you to the bunny slopes. All other lifts are "up in the mountain" to get everyone spread out. When we ski there, we typically are at the base once. Beginning of the day, end of the day, unless we're doing laps on Sleeper over at Mary Jane.
Mary Jane. There's a mountain with only Blue and Black (double black also) terrain. Want to avoid Texan spring break? go there.
LONG runs. You can ski a green (now a blue because they didn't want absolute newbies going to the top) from the top of Parsenn's bowl to the base. It's a couple miles long. There are some very long blue cruisers too. Cranmer is one of my favorite runs on the mountain. Parry's Peak is fun. Forget me not on the bowl, etc.
Now, the "spread out" feeling can be tough for first timers because you have to sometimes go laterally to go up or to get to parts of the mountain. However, once you get the hang of it, you can be at the top of the bowl from the base of WP in 3 lifts (Gondola, Hi-Lonesome, Pano express).
Snow has been very good every year for the last... 10+ years? In fact, this is the first year I can even remember that the snow wasn't fantastic. We typically go at Spring break or Christmas so I can't attest to how it's done early season but the mountain has been 100% open every year. And even right now it's 50% open with only the Cirque (double black chutes, I have no business skiing that) and Eaglewind, all black tree runs closed.
