Best location for skiing during Christmas break

vanhanbr

vanhanbr

Member
I know it is a bad idea to travel during Christmas, but I'm probably going to do it anyway. Last year, our family skied Grand Targhee/Jackson Hole during New Years and had great success. It was cold (high around 10 degrees) and that likely thinned the crowds. This year, I was considering Steamboat, Mt. Bachelor or Schweitzer. Bestsnow.net mentions the first two, but I was wondering if anyone has an opinion on Schweitzer this early? Thanks for any info and I promise to provide trail reports this year.
 
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I'd say above average for early season snow reliability. Snowfall on a PNW track tends to be front loaded some, and the current La Nina is an additional positive factor.

Schweitzer is the premier area for Spokane metro area daytrippers, less than 2 hours away. Its traffic is thus weekend concentrated, but is usually quiet midweek. Holidays may be more like weekends, but I can't say for sure. I doubt it's like Denver/SLC/Seattle weekends though. This region has other reasonably sized under the radar areas which are rarely busy: Silver Mt., 49 Degrees North and Mt. Spokane. So you you definitely want to have a car and be flexible. During the pandemic 2021 season you'll see several TR's from ChrisC, Jamesdeluxe and me from these and other interior NW areas (currently on pp. 6-8). It's also worth keeping Red Mt. across the border in mind. Red is much steeper and requires more coverage though.
 
My guess is that Schweitzer (never been there) would be the least crowded of the three (Schweitzer, Bachelor or Steamboat) and Steamboat probably the most crowded.
Kind of ancient history, but I had a good experience in late December at Bachelor back in 2012. It was busy, but not so bad as to spoil the fun. I guess I was lucky on conditions, they were excellent with the whole mountain open for that visit: https://www.dcski.com/articles/1374
 
No question Steamboat would be the most busy. Bachelor has a lot of lift capacity relative to its visitation, plus Bend probably has more lodging capacity than Sandpoint.

Bachelor's caveat is whether weather will allow Summit to operate. In 1985 I was lucky with Christmas Week like jimk was in 2012. But long term Summit is open no more than half the time midwinter per local impression. My open Summit track record on 7 trips (4 winter, 3 spring) through 2012 was 20/23:icon-mrgreen:. I've since had 3 spring trips with Liz with a more modest record of 5/9.

The past two seasons Bachelor has given me the number of Summit days open by month. It's a small sample size, but open Summit days have a -94% correlation with monthly snowfall. Summit was open no days in December 2020 (late and gradual opening in COVID season) and 3 days in December 2021 (too little snow in November and too much in December). Those preliminary stats based on monthly snowfall imply Summit is open about 1/3 of the time around the Christmas holidays.
 
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I've pretty much ruled out Steamboat and honestly only considered it because I saw a (relatively) cheap flight into Denver.
 
vanhanbr said:
I've pretty much ruled out Steamboat and honestly only considered it because I saw a (relatively) cheap flight into Denver.
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Even as 'local' I can't complain on that one. Steamboat is very crowded over the Christmas holidays. That said, it also is frequently ~95% open which is much better than most of Colorado in that time span...
 
jamesdeluxe said:
Surprising. I was under the impression that you've skied all of the decent-sized resorts out west.
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I've been to 85+ ski areas in the USA, but the Northern Rockies and the PNW are weak spots in my resume. Of all the ski areas In the states of Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon I've only visited Big Sky and Mt. Bachelor.

Schweitzer has not been on my radar until the last few years. I understand it and Red Mtn are a nice combo that are both on the Ikon pass. I have the Ikon base this year and I'm somewhat interested in visiting them, but not sure if it will happen this winter.
 
A home base in SLC can be a gravitational black hole as far as adding new ski areas outside the state is concerned. That's the way it worked for our former admin. When he moved to SLC in 2005 we each had about 120 ski areas. Since then he's added maybe 5, while my total has more than doubled.
 
Tony Crocker said:
A home base in SLC can be a gravitational black hole as far as adding new ski areas outside the state is concerned. That's the way it worked for our former admin.
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In addition to the skiing angle, he found a cultural and political nirvana in that state after a number of years going on and writing about lots of destination trips.

jimk said:
Schweitzer has not been on my radar until the last few years. I understand it and Red Mtn are a nice combo that are both on the Ikon pass
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As mentioned in our reports, you can easily spend a week on an itinerary covering the Inland Northwest ski areas within 90 minutes of Spokane: Schweitzer, Silver, 49 Degrees, Mount Spokane, and Lookout Pass.
 
Yes, it's hard to get motivated for distant and expensive ski trips when you've got a convenient way to make the Wasatch Mtns your winter backyard. Here's a piece I wrote recently on the ski bum-retiree lifestyle: https://www.dcski.com/articles/1681

Back to the OP's original question: It looks like he's focusing on Ikon resorts. Possibly the very best from that group for Christmas Week skiing might be Aspen-Snowmass. If you can figure a way to afford the lodging, the skiing will not be crazy crowded. Christmas Week report from 2013: https://web.archive.org/web/20170427134706/http://www.epicski.com/a/colorado-road-trip-recap
 
James thinks Liz and I are road warriors. But Jimk's trip of 3,993 miles for 5 days of skiing makes even Tseeb look like a lightweight.

Liz and I remember well Christmas 2013-14. It was one of those bone dry early seasons in California. We had Mountain Collectives back then, and Liz was restless to get our season going after Christmas. As of Dec. 22 Aspen/Snowmass was 89% open, tied with Alta (not a good place to be during Christmas Week) for the most among MCP areas at the time. So we hit the road Dec. 28 and skied under the radar Eagle Point, Powderhorn and Sunlight on the way to Aspen.

We had read that Aspen could handle peak vacation periods well, and that was certainly our experience skiing Jan. 1-8. As I said at the time, the only advance planning you need in Aspen at peak times is for restaurant reservations! We got a reasonably priced condo in Snowmass for most of our time there, booked Dec. 22 when we decided on the trip.

Aspen was at 143% of normal snowfall Dec. 22, so Jimk and his son enjoyed a distinctly above average snowpack on his trip. Aspen/Snowmass averages 56% open Dec. 15 and 85% open Dec. 31, which is above average for destination resorts. Aspen's average of 250-300 inches of spread out, low density snow is often not a recipe for a reliable early season, but I have those open percent stats for 19 years and only 3 of them would have been sketchy with minimal advanced terrain open.

By the time we were leaving Aspen, a storm was hitting Utah so we diverted for 5 more ski days there on the way home. Our trip was 19 days, 15 ski days and probably about 2,500 miles of driving. Jim in his epicski TR above mentions the value of driving for flexibility and last minute decision making. That certainly applied in our case, both the initial Aspen decision and the diversion to Utah on the way home.
 
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I did considered Aspen, but two things held me back:

1) Our family just skied Aspen Snowmass for a week last March. It was as fun and relaxing as a ski trip could get! We woke up to fresh powder every-single-day, stayed at the Timberline (ski-in/ski-out), enjoyed the outdoor pool/hot tub and hardly ran into a crowd. We had such a good time, that my wife would like to repeat this trip again next March.
2) Price is a factor. The same condo we stayed at costs $1300 a night over Christmas/New Year's or roughly 2X as much as in March. That's not worth it to me. I just want to go skiing, but unfortunately, we're locked into skiing during school breaks. As the kids get older (almost eight now), niceties like ski-in/ski-outs are becoming less of a necessity. We stayed in-town and drove to the hill twice last year and it worked out well.
I was wondering about the practicality of staying in-town and driving to Schweitzer? Is the parking a mess? Otherwise, onsite lodging is still available (and more affordable than Aspen). It appears Mount Bachelor's only lodging is in nearby Bend. Also looks like they had problems in the past with parking reservations during Covid. I'm wondering how much of a problem parking will be this year.
We normally go "out west" with the kids 3-4 times a year and already have a trip booked to Copper in January, Big Sky mid-February and possibly Aspen again in March. If I can keep cost under control, I would like to squeeze in this additional trip.

Not to split the thread, but I admire the TRs you all post. Any recommendations for keeping track of what you skied all day? Or do you all just have eidetic memory?
 
While Aspen/Snowmass is good for crowd avoidance, I agree it's better in March than at Christmas most of the time.

At both Bachelor and Schweitzer I would be inclined to stay in town. Bachelor's road up from Bend is straight and gradual, rarely has problems, and any parking restrictions were surely due to COVID capacity limits in 2020-21. Schweitzer has a more typical access road that is slow going when weather is bad, and yes you probably want to get there early on busy days. But if you're there for a week you might be trying some other ski areas, so that argues for staying in Sandpoint, where you will also have a wider range of dinner/apres options.

I'm impressed that vanhandr wants to take four fly-west-with-family ski trips in one season! Often I've asked people in these threads why they insist on Christmas Week instead of February or spring break, when prices/crowds are more reasonable and full operation of terrain more likely. So I certainly won't argue with someone planning Christmas Week "in addition to" vs. "instead of" other school break options.

I would vote for Sandpoint for the Christmas trip particularly in a La Nina year. Oregon is not quite as strongly favored in La Nina, but to the extent it is, that's a negative point for Bachelor as it lowers the odds of Summit being open. By contrast, Schweitzer has excellent tree skiing and is thus one of the best bad weather ski areas, which is the way I've usually seen it. For someone like vanhandr making multiple western trips, I strongly recommend that Bachelor be the spring break/final destination trip of the season.

I have always had a spreadsheet to record vertical, and that also includes concise notes about weather/conditions and what I skied. For the more detailed reports posted here, the pictures often help as well, not only what they show but the times they were taken.

I know my visual memory is very good. If I have surveyed an area well for a day, I can come back a few seasons later and know what I want to do. The most interesting navigation challenges come in the Alps, where trail maps often distort scale and exposures. I then try do some advance research, occasionally aided by Google Earth to get around the map distortions.
 
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I am leaning towards Schweitzer at this point. The kids love tree skiing the most.

Our "big" break is a week mid-March. Is that when you would recommend Bachelor? Do you think there is enough terrain for week? If we didn't end up in Aspen again, I was considering either Mammoth or Utah. I would like to go to Banff/Lake Louise, but I think I will give it one more year to make sure we don't get hung up with covid restrictions, etc.

Starting from when they turned 3 in December, they have travelled to 13 mountains by air. They are blessed (I can't say spoiled.)
17/18 Keystone
18/19 Winter Park, Steamboat, Deer Valley
19/20 Copper (Big Sky cancelled due to covid)
20/21 Silver Mountain, Brundage/Tamarack
21/22 Grand Targhee/Jackson Hole, A-basin, Big Sky, Aspen

I didn't get a whole lot of skiing the first few years after the twins were born. Eventually, I decided the only way I was going to get out west again was if we took the kids along. Southwest had direct flights Chicago to Denver for some ridiculous price like $59. So, I booked them. Epic Keystone pass was cheap, and kids were either free or close to it. I also signed them up for lessons a couple times. We did some of the hokey tourist activities. Everyone I knew thought I was crazy for taking kids along, but we had an amazing time. Once we got the first trip down, the others were easier.
 
vanhanbr said:
Our "big" break is a week mid-March. Is that when you would recommend Bachelor? Do you think there is enough terrain for week?
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Yes if Summit is open. But odds are still in the 50% range IMHO. If that means you get it open half of your days, that's still worthwhile. But there is a non trivial chance you get skunked for all/most of the week. The other rap on Bachelor is not a lot of super steep terrain. But your kids are still fairly young. Age 7 was when my son Adam (who also started just before an age 3 December birthday) was capable of advanced terrain and 20K vertical days. So if you have high intermediate/low advanced kids, Bachelor is a really good place with a lot of interesting ungroomed terrain that is not too intimidating. April is still the prime month not only for Summit being open more often but the backside that is often windswept sastrugi in winter becomes butter smooth corn in spring.

Mammoth, Utah and Banff/Lake Louise are all good choices in March.
vanhanbr said:
Once we got the first trip down, the others were easier.
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Yes and if you put in the grunt work starting when they are 3, you can have enthusiastic ski companions not far off your own pace at 7 or 8. And they may pass you by when they are teenagers.
vanhanbr said:
they have travelled to 13 mountains by air.
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Adam had 18 ski areas at the end of the age 7 season, 82 areas by age 22. He has added only 5 more in the last 14 years. Nearly all of his adult skiing is at Mammoth or in LCC.
 
vanhanbr said:
I did considered Aspen, but two things held me back:

1) Our family just skied Aspen Snowmass for a week last March. It was as fun and relaxing as a ski trip could get! We woke up to fresh powder every-single-day, stayed at the Timberline (ski-in/ski-out), enjoyed the outdoor pool/hot tub and hardly ran into a crowd. We had such a good time, that my wife would like to repeat this trip again next March.
2) Price is a factor. The same condo we stayed at costs $1300 a night over Christmas/New Year's or roughly 2X as much as in March. That's not worth it to me. I just want to go skiing, but unfortunately, we're locked into skiing during school breaks. As the kids get older (almost eight now), niceties like ski-in/ski-outs are becoming less of a necessity. We stayed in-town and drove to the hill twice last year and it worked out well.
I was wondering about the practicality of staying in-town and driving to Schweitzer? Is the parking a mess? Otherwise, onsite lodging is still available (and more affordable than Aspen). It appears Mount Bachelor's only lodging is in nearby Bend. Also looks like they had problems in the past with parking reservations during Covid. I'm wondering how much of a problem parking will be this year.
We normally go "out west" with the kids 3-4 times a year and already have a trip booked to Copper in January, Big Sky mid-February and possibly Aspen again in March. If I can keep cost under control, I would like to squeeze in this additional trip.

Not to split the thread, but I admire the TRs you all post. Any recommendations for keeping track of what you skied all day? Or do you all just have eidetic memory?
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Yes, as Tony said the drive from Bend to Mt. Bachelor is very gradual and seems to be well maintained for transit most of the time. I've heard that Schweitzer has a very functional overflow parking lot located a few miles from the base and that it holds a lot of cars and they run a free shuttle from there to the ski area.

I also have a pretty strong memory of my ski visits. Taking photos and especially the act of writing a trip report really cements the memories, not to mention the reports give you an online document that you can refer back to over time.

@vanhanbr , keep up with the family skiing! I raised four skiers (3 girls, 1 boy) and we still ski together from time to time. All are grown now. My son is particularly avid and is a part time instructor at Snowbird. I ski with him a lot.
 
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