Anyone Locking in Trips Yet?

EMSC

EMSC

Well-known member
As we wait for more substantial skiing than currently available, I was curious if anyone is already locking in some trips...

For just myself & wife - not yet, I want to see who has good snow. But, I have 2 trips this year with people coming from all over the US; so logistically everyone getting time off, plane tickets, and logistics coordinated we've settled in on a couple.

*Big family reunion style trip - a week at Steamboat after Christmas (been in the works by my parents for 2 years to get this one planned out!).
*And the annual 'boys' trip - a long weekend at Heavenly/Tahoe mid-Feb.

Not exactly the most exciting destinations for a skier like me (generally too flat). But I'll throw in a cat-skiing day at steamboat and my brother & I are looking at doing an extra day in Tahoe (Kirkwood, Squaw... it's TBD). Let hope for good early snow in Colo and a much better snow year in Tahoe!

Anyone else plugged into dates or locations yet?
 
Chatter Creek and the Iron Blosam are annual events for me. Final payment for Chatter was due this week; nice to see a small consolation to the market carnage in the 81 cent $CDN price break for that charge. I've bought air tickets in/out of Kelowna this time, intending to spend some time at the new area in Revelstoke after Chatter. Iron Blosam will likely be the full week now that we own a timeshare there. Only decision is whether to fly or drive that.

I'm also considering Extremely Canadian's Niseko trip. That one may be a bit cheaper now too.
 
Got my eticket for my flight to SLC Jan 24. I'll be returning Feb 7th. Yeah, only 2 weeks, but I realized that I cannot afford to ski much more than that. Skiing during that period will likely cost about $700. Thankfully, that is my only expense...otherwise, I wouldn't be able to afford to go. The Eticket was claimed with reward miles on my Citi card. Even spending $700 is much for me at this time (as I just unexpectedly spent $700 on my dog's 2nd ACL surgery). However, I decided to spend 2 weeks skiing in Utah to save money on travel and get in as much skiing as possible. It seemed much more worthwhile than just one week. I have the time, just not the money.

-Sharon
 
Tony Crocker":ux4ld31t said:
small consolation to the market carnage in the 81 cent $CDN price break for that charge.
Click to expand...
78.6 cents...

Funny, Bank of Canada mentioned yesterday that growth for 2009 should be something like 0.6%, technically not a recession. I guess when oil and other ressources value go down, so does the dollar. Manufacturing industry is happy, Canadian Snowbirds aren't.(retirees that fly south for the Winter)

As for the plans, I rarely plan so far ahead. We'll see. Lucky Luke is bugging me about going to Eaglecrest. :shock: :shock: :shock:
 
The wife and I have booked a week in northern New Mexico Feb 7-14 (solo! the kid stays with the grandparents! \:D/). I know... it's a serious roll of the dice for powder, but she's never skied there, and I want to show her my old stomping grounds.
 
all depends on the snow and patterns for me. the longest out i usually book is 3 weeks which is the average notice i need to give work. as of now i'm lookin at utah again from around the 20th of jan till early feb which to me is the most reliable for good utah snow and enough base for touring in the b.c. and then the most reliable option from year to year is the chic chocs in quebec the last week of april. if work is really slow mid-winter, then i may take up to a month or so off to help payroll out. if we start to have another winter like the last 2, i will stay east and just hit the chic chocs in april.
rog
 
1.00 EUR = 1.26999 USD

If the exchange rate keeps improving, maybe we can put the Alps back on the table.
 
A buddy and I are booked for the Ogden Valley..Jan.17-24/09...and a family trip to Sugarbush, VT for the end of Feb.
Not happy with our dollar, falling out of the sky...but who cares about that on powder day anyway?...flights were cheap to SLC..under 200.00CDN return from Detroit.
 
I've taken the bulls by the horns and booked my flights. Looked every week or so and it was always £665 return from Aberdeen to Montana via Amsterdam and Minneapolis with KLM/Northwest all the way. Could get it cheaper but I do not like mixing airlines on such a long trip. Then one day a month back the prices plummeted to £516 return from Aberdeen to Missoula.

I know you'll all be thinking, here we go again, why Montana etc etc but I will spend some time with my friends in Philipsburg at the beginning of the trip and it allows me to either head west to Washington/Oregon or south to Utah etc.

With the current meltdown in the UK the exchange rate for me is sitting at 1.6 $ to the £ compared to roughly 2 earlier this year when I was out. Thats a fair hit but time will tell and it is still better than my first visit to the USA by myself back in 2003. At just over 2 CAN$ to the £ Missoula gives me the option of heading into Canada again if things do get worse.
 
Given q's past trips, a month in length plus tolerance for marathon drives, it almost doesn't matter where he flies into the western US. He can go anywhere. The criticisms he attracted were more related to choice of areas to visit.

I would point out that the basic method would be attractive to many on FTO. With a month and a car, one could use that flexibility to chase the best snow conditions. With that mindset, the late March/early April timing of last year's trip was less than ideal. There are many resorts that are past their prime by then. One of the reasons obscure resorts can be obscure (and this applies to several of those in central Montana as analyzed by JSpin) is erratic snow conditions. So if one is doing this kind of trip, with emphasis on the smaller places, it ought to be during February prime time.
 
I don't think anything was missing; it was a musing by a travel writer.

We've been over the economic topic elsewhere viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7030. I could see an argument that Euro skiing will be hit harder than we will. A much larger proportion of Euro skier visits are from the one-week-a-year casual skiers. While in the US it's more composed of the dedicated fanatics. The former would be more likely to forgo a ski trip for economic reasons that the latter IMHO.
 
I'm locked in to Vail March 1-9. We'll be road warriors from there unless there's significant local snow. Our range will be West to Utah, North to Wyoming, or South to San Juans
 
My annual trip to Utah doesn't look like it's going happen this year. In march I'll be heading to Israel, so that should pretty much kill one of the trips. My uncle invited me out the last week of february to stay in his condo at Whistler so I may do that. Hopefully the dollar keeps strengthening. Unfortunately, my sister is getting married in Italy in may, which means I have to save money for a European trip through june. That pretty much kills my ski year because I can't both go to Europe and have 3 proper ski "vacations." Hopefully, I'll get a weekend or two up in northern vermont or lake placid. I think the 5 or 6 days in whistler will be nice, however, I will miss my 10 to 15 days of Alta :cry: .

Next year (i.e. winter 10'), however, will be a big ski year as there are no major trips planned, and I should have saved plenty of money. I have two friends who have recently moved out west. One moved to santa fe, and the other to denver. The one who moved to denver has a condo right near vail. So, I imagine march 2010 will be me renting a car out west for 2 weeks and hitting every resort I wish to.
 
Hi. New here - but I thought I'd join in to this post. Locked in a trip to Utah for superbowl weekend (Jan29th - Feb 1st), and Mammoth - March 18th - 22nd. I sure am praying that the conditions are superb and that I don't miss the Nor'easter of the winter in Vermont while I'm gone. Such is the gamble when booking trips early... We shal see. :o
 
TRWstock":6rh2jctt said:
Hi. New here - but I thought I'd join in to this post. Locked in a trip to Utah for superbowl weekend (Jan29th - Feb 1st), and Mammoth - March 18th - 22nd. I sure am praying that the conditions are superb and that I don't miss the Nor'easter of the winter in Vermont while I'm gone.
Click to expand...

Which never fails to happen! :lol:

Welcome to FTO Liftlines, TRWstock. Glad to have you here, and hope that we'll hear from you often.
 
TRWstock":19cpzd4d said:
. - Feb 1st), and Mammoth - March 18th - 22nd. I sure am praying that the conditions are superb and that I don't miss the Nor'easter of the winter in Vermont while I'm gone. Such is the gamble when booking trips early... We shal see. :o
Click to expand...

you won't be missing the nor'easter of the winter in vermont, you'll be missing it in maine as those storms typically give maine/nh the goods and that's good cuz vermonters don't travel east to ski unless it's to pay mr washington a visit.
rog
 
Really? I always felt like VT does pretty well with most Nor'Easters. If NH/ME always get more snow from coastal storms, why do their annual snowfall averages fall much lower than the mtn's along the Northern Green mtn spine? I have yet to be in ME (quite the venture from Long Island), but heck - if there's a true coastal storm that misses VT and dumps in Maine, perhaps this is my year to trek eastward.
 
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