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Welcome to my very final passion blog for the year. In this post, I will rank the resorts I have discussed previously, and reflect on the experience this blog has given me. I will be ranking separately the resorts I have been to and the ones I aspire to go to.

Resorts I Have Visited

1. Vail, Colorado

While I have qualms about the Vail Resorts system and how they have taken over small businesses, I really think that Vail gives skiers the best value for the price. The resort is pretty expensive, but the expanse of the mountain more than makes up for it, and its unique trail and back bowl system don’t leave any skiers wanting.

2. Seven Springs, Pennsylvania

Seven Springs, compared to the other mountains on this list, has given me the most diverse experience each time I go there. This is a strong resort with a big trail map, with a diverse setup for beginner and expert skiers to traverse. Also, the possibility of steep angles and higher difficulty of the slopes compared to most North Carolina mountains is worth noting.

3. Sugar Mountain, North Carolina

Surprisingly, I am choosing to place Sugar Mountain over a resort in the Canadian mountains. However, I believe that it is for a good reason. Perhaps this is nostalgia talking, but I believe that any skier from the South looking for a fantastic ski experience should go here- while ones in the North and West have their fair share of resorts to pick from, southern skiers don’t have this opportunity. Sugar Mountain sought to provide this experience, even though developing a resort further north would have been more profitable, as they don’t need to develop as much infrastructure around creating snow. Sugar Mountain is definitely the place to be for Southerners!

4. Stoneham, Quebec

Stoneham was my first international and northern mountain, but it disappointed me after being compared to resorts such as Seven Springs. The trails were longer than I was used to, but there weren’t that many of them and I easily got bored after a few days. It is a great mountain for maybe one day of skiing, but I would recommend transferring over to its sister mountain, Mont Saint Anne (they share lift tickets) if skiing here for longer than that.

5. Beech Mountain, North Carolina

Beech Mountain, while it had a more expansive trail system and vertical drop than Sugar Mountain, has a terrible infrastructure in regards to its lifts and snow blowers. Their lifts are incredibly slow and break down often, and the fact that the snow blowers are turned on during the day (blowing ice into the faces of each and every skier) makes this resort lose many points.

6. Appalachian Ski Mountain, North Carolina

I’m not sure this should be called a mountain- rather a hill. While its park setup is good for a North Carolina mountain, that is its’ best feature and it falls short compared to any northern resort. Aside from the park, it has a severely underdeveloped slope system and could easily bore someone after an hour or two.

Resorts I Wish to Visit

1.   Park City, Utah

Park City is the best choice for the top of this list because not only does it have a wide variety of trails and quality snow, but it is also more cost-effective than Switzerland and Canada. The EPIC pass system allows skiers to get some relatively good deals compared to lift ticket prices at other resorts, and you could easily occupy yourself for multiple days at this resort.

2. Mont-Saint-Anne, Quebec

Mont-Saint-Anne, the sister resort to Stoneham, is the blatantly superior sibling out of the two. Not only is there a much more expansive trail system, but the vertical drop is also better. I feel that spending multiple days at this resort is a much better use of any skier’s time than spending that same time at Stoneham. However, the recent news story about the gondola falling off of the track is definitely concerning.

3. Zermatt-Matterhorn, Switzerland/Italy

Zermatt-Matterhorn gains points on this list because of the incredibly unique trails (skiing between countries?!) and amazing views. However, it falls short in accessibility and cost. Switzerland is known for being an incredibly expensive country, and this ski mountain certainly holds up that reputation. Perhaps this mountain would be great for a bucket list, but it isn’t realistic for me to actually visit anytime in the near future.

 

That concludes my reports on my lifetime of skiing. Hopefully, as I explore more ski resorts in the future, I can reflect on my time writing this and appreciate ski resorts better. Hopefully, I can go to some of the resorts I have written about wanting to visit, and hopefully, I can return to some of the ones I’ve already gone to and reviewed. Either way, creating these reviews has given me a beneficial perspective on what makes a ‘great’ resort and what makes a bad one. With that, I conclude my last passion blog.

Adieu!

The last resort I have found on my bucket list is one of the least realistic ski areas for me to ever visit, but hopefully, I find myself in the situation in my life to be able to visit this amazing place.

The Mount Zermatt Ski area in Switzerland is one of the most prestigious ski areas in Western Europe. Filled with a small number of beginner runs and an in-depth collection of expert runs, this mountain in the Alps will be sure to test the skills of any skier. Since the ski resort is set in the heart of the Swiss alpine mountain range, its insanely high vertical drop of 2,300m allows for long, steep runs. Attached below is a more in-depth look at the slope map.

It is astounding that this ski resort is so expansive that instead of naming specific trails, they instead name areas that one can ski between. While most of these routes look to be in the intermediate skill level, it is important to keep in mind the clientele of these resorts and how they must scale their difficulty levels based on that- an intermediate level run in Pennsylvania or Colorado will not be the same as one in Switzerland.

Similarly, it is nice to note that the trail map is in four different languages. This area of Switzerland has influences from France, Germany, and Italy, creating a populous that speaks three languages frequently. In addition, since this is a high tourist area, English is also included. One of the secondary reasons I would love to visit this part of Switzerland is to experience the unique mix of cultures from many different areas and see how they have combined in language, food, and culture.

While I can’t name any specific runs that pique my interest, one beginner run is incredibly famous for the unique opportunity it gives skiers. The most well-known run at Zermatt ski resort is actually the cat track- from Cervinia, Italy, to Zermatt, Switzerland. This trail actually runs between two different countries, allowing skiers to boast that they have literally used skis to travel between two different countries.

It is clear that anyone could spend weeks exploring this beautiful mountain in all of its glory, and take in the spectacular views across the rest of the Swiss Alps. The Matterhorn itself (one of the mountains included in the ski resort) is one of the most recognizable mountain faces in the world because of its unique shape. Then, after days of skiing, one can explore the unique cultural experience of either Italy or Switzerland- or both.

 

Hopefully one day I am able to go here and experience the raw beauty of Mt. Zermatt and the swiss alps. However, for the time I’m paying for college tuition, I don’t see it as a possibility, and so I await my time!

Next week, I’ll rank the ski resorts I’ve visited and the ones I haven’t visited, in order to provide a comprehensive list for both new and experienced skiers of the best places to visit.

In this week’s post, I will describe a ski resort I have not yet been to but am hoping to visit either this upcoming winter or spring break. Of course, as is the dream of almost all who ski or snowboard, my dreams for the upcoming season lie on the West Coast.

Park City, Utah is widely regarded as one of our continent’s best-groomed areas, with an extensive terrain park setup (hence the name) and a wide variety of trails. The mountain has a 3,200-foot vertical drop from the height of the tallest trail to the base of the resort. In addition, this ski resort was featured in the 2002 Olympic Winter games, giving U.S. skiers 14 Olympic metals (https://mtnhomeparkcity.com) The trail system is incredibly expansive, sporting multiple blue and black runs like ‘No Name’ and ‘Shooting Star’ that I’m incredibly interested in spending some time on.

In addition to the black runs, their back bowls, such as the Mt. Ogdon Bowl and the Sister’s Bowl, would certainly be an amazing experience, paired with stunning views across the mountain and the Rocky Mountain Range. These bowls are wide expanses of open terrain, shaped like a bowl, allowing skiers to express their creativity and enjoy the powder-like snow.

However, before I travel to Park City, I have decided that I must become at least somewhat proficient in the ‘freestyle’ aspect of snowboarding. I used to ride a skateboard before starting to snowboard, so I am confident in small tricks like jumps and ollies while riding down the mountain, but have not explored any actual terrain parks. I am planning on exploring the park setup at Seven Springs next season, as this year I worked on improving my overall board control and becoming used to mountains that were more impressive than North Carolina. I hope to learn a few basic tricks, as well as the technique to build off of when I want to learn more tricks on the equipment at the park. I then plan on exploring the park setup at Park City, which has six different terrain parks to try. I appreciate the fact that Park City has both beginner parks and intermediate/expert parks because I always become nervous about taking away from the experience of someone who is able to utilize the equipment better than me, and I believe that this distinction would help me feel more confident in progressing.

Overall, Park City, Utah is sure to create a fantastic experience that will keep me enthralled for many days. Hopefully, I am able to go either with my family or friends, but either way, this resort will certainly remain on my bucket list for the future.

Sources:

Fun Facts About Park City

This week’s post moves past the present and begins to look at ski resorts that I have on my bucket list to visit in the next few years. Mont-Saint-Anne is a sister resort of Stoneham ski resort, which I reviewed in a previous post. Originally, this resort was included in the Snowboard Club’s Quebec trip itinerary but was shut down for the period of time we were there due to a gondola crash.

While I am grateful that I was not a part of this gondola accident, I was disheartened to hear that we would not be able to explore the slopes of this mountain. More expansive than Stoneham, this mountain features a 2000 feet vertical drop, with over 540 acres of skiable terrain (mont-saint-anne.com). In addition to the gondola (which has since been renovated and then re-opened), there are four high-speed quad chairlifts and four surface lifts.

Features along the south side of the mountain that caught my eye included the Schnell and La Beauregard run, which, leading into La Crete, would prove to be a long run that would keep me occupied for likely 30-40 minutes at a time. Although the difficulty of Canadian black diamond runs are certainly different from Pennsylvania ones, I would enjoy being put up to the challenge. Also, the green runs that traverse through the woodlands on the right side of the trail map, namely La Familiale, would certainly provide unmatchable views.

This ski resort also boasts an equally expansive south and western side, decorated with mostly blue runs. I am incredibly interested in trying out La Belanger, which runs right alongside the chairlifts, to try and reach new top speeds. While winding green tree runs are fantastic to take in views, the diversity of also being able to speed down straight blue runs also has its merit.

This resort would easily keep a skier or snowboarder occupied for multiple days. Not only does the wide range of trail variety treat the wants of all skill and adrenaline levels, but the sheer number of different runs makes sure that no trail gets too crowded and nobody has an issue with doing the same runs repetitively. Similarly, the longevity of some of the runs like Le Chemin du Roy on the far north side will make sure anyone is occupied for many hours. One aspect of southern snowboarding that I dislike is the ratio between time on lifts and time on runs, but this resort makes sure that ratio is as high as possible with both long runs and quick lifts.

As I’ll be joining the Snowboard Club again in 2024 on their next trip to Quebec, I hope to get to experience this resort in all of its glory instead of spending all four days at Stoneham. Until then, I can only wait and hope it remains open.

Until next time!

This week we come up on the most recent ski resort I’ve visited: Seven Springs ski resort, in southern Pennsylvania.

This ski resort is a two-hour drive from State College, meaning that I woke up at 5 am with two of my friends to get on the road and start the day early. Being incredibly caffeinated in order to drive and hitting the slopes was fun for a bit, but the coffee crash that happened about three hours in was horrible- I wouldn’t recommend it.

Seven Springs is under Vail Resorts Management  – if you haven’t heard my opinion on this corporation, you should check out my very first post. Although I have strong animosity towards their company, I bit the bullet and bought their “Epic” Northeast pass so I could save money when I went frequently this season. I’d recommend it if you think you would go to a Vail-owned resort more than four times in a year.

The layout of Seven Springs pleasantly surprised me- I didn’t go in expecting an experience like Vail or Stoneham (which I’ve written about in previous blog posts), but something more similar to North Carolina mountains. I ended up being able to visit a resort about twice to three times the size of my home mountain, with varied terrain and interesting runs. Attached below is a trail map, which I will go further into detail on.

When I went to Seven Springs with my friends, I definitely stepped out of my comfort zone in order to keep up and stay on the same trails as them. Ones that I found were notable were the Giant Steps slope and North Face slope. It’s easy for me to say that I’m able to do black diamond runs on North Carolina mountains, but these were an entirely different beast. I genuinely thought that they just put a sign next to a cliff, because the slopes were so icy and steep in certain places. I wrote about the Whoopdee-doo run, with an impressive sustained pitch of 31 degree, while reviewing Sugar Mountain, but I believe that some spots in the Seven Springs runs were actually more steep- they just aren’t sustained angles so it’s more difficult to navigate.

This trip to Seven Springs also taught me an incredibly important lesson: never try to teach someone to snowboard. The two friends I was with had similar heights and shoe sizes, and decided to switch so that both of them could try the other method. While the one that switched from snowboarding to skiing picked it up quickly and made it down the green slope, the one that switched from skiing to snowboarding didn’t have such good luck. While the trip ended with a trip to Mount Nittany Medical Center and a brand new wrist cast (yep, he broke it), I can say that Seven Springs will continue to be a Sunday staple for my winter seasons.

With this post we travel out of North Carolina and begin to explore my more recent ski trips. Over winter break I joined the Penn State Snowboard Club on their winter trip to Quebec City in Canada. My first international trip without my family was definitely a terrifying experience, but being able to go with my friends and club was an incredible time. While our original plans included going to Mt. Saint Anne ski resort as well, a lot of drama and controversy surrounding that resort at the time forced us to remain at Stoneham for the four days we were there. While it was a bummer not being able to go, this news article definitely clues you into how grateful I am to not have gone.

Stoneham Mountain was the first northern mountain that I had ever actually snowboarded, given the fact that Colorado had me remain on the bunny slopes as I learned. I was incredibly shocked by the breadth of this mountain, and how the trails were actually longer than ten minutes. One thing that Mt. Stoneham has under its belt is long, breezy trails that can last you for 25-30 minutes if you take your time.

This resort had beautiful weather the entire time, with two out of our four days being actively snowing. The powder on the surface was built up really nicely for the first half of the day, and only became noticably icy near the end (this is still the East Coast, folks!). While the entire right side of the mountain was closed, the majority of the runs on the left face and middle face were open, giving us a lot of room to explore and try out different things. The lifts were also a lot more developed and faster than my North Carolina mountains, which was definitely an added bonus as we were able to spend more time riding instead of sitting.

One confusing aspect of being on this mountain was the trail map: even though I was fully aware of Quebec province being French-speaking, our group was incredibly thrown off by the fact that the trail maps, directions to lodges, and even the trail names were all in French. We were morally required to take a picture next to the “La Rock-N-Roll” slope.

Overall, this northern mountain definitely holds to both standards of East-Coast skiing and Canadian skiing. This large mountain definitely kept us entertained for more than one day, but still fell short in aspects like difficulty and quality of snow that we had come to expect in East Coast mountains.

In the next post, I’ll talk about my first trip to a PA mountain: Seven Springs.  Stay tuned! (^:

I dared to travel to Beech Mountain Ski Resort as I was home for winter break from my first semester at Penn State, just over two months ago. As I had visited most of the other ski mountains in my state, even though I hadn’t wanted to venture out of my safety of Sugar Mountain I figured I wanted to have the experience of trying all three mountains.

I say “dared” to travel because, in my state, Beech Mountain Ski Resort doesn’t have the friendliest media attention. Last season, a burst pipe underneath a chair lift led to skiers riding up the mountain to be “blasted” with frozen water (ABC). When the lift was stopped (as it does during an emergency), skiers who were now stuck under the burst pipe had to be sent to the hospital.

Beech Mountain certainly had a lot of re-working to do since the 2021-2022 ski season, and in my opinion, it disappointed. Some of the lift chairs still low-quality, extremely old, and not very safe. The majority of their lifts are the same as the one involved in the accident in 2022, with the actual lift involved in the accident being replaced for the first time since 1968 (skiresort.info).

However, other than the incredibly sketchy lifts, I found one other thing about Beech Mountain Resort when I went: the snow guns were turned on. While I understand having the snow blowers on because North Carolina hadn’t gotten much real snow this season, they blew ice into the air at high speeds for the entire eight hours I was there. It wasn’t exactly what I would call a pleasant experience.

The slopes themselves were covered in clumped man-made snow, obviously due to the snow cannons. Due to the fact that the blowers had been on all day, the groomers weren’t able to actually groom the trails so the conditions were actually really bad.

Beech Mountain has a vertical drop of 830 feet, compared to Sugar Mountain’s 1,200 feet, and boasts eight different chair lifts.  Attached below are two maps: one from the official Beech Mountain Resort website, and another uploaded by Reddit user u/_KayTwo_.

I apologize for these images being blurry. You can visit them yourself with the links to Beech Mountain Ski Resort Map and Meme Beech Mountain Map.

Strongly agreeing with the joke map made about the mountain, I really didn’t feel like the mountain had much variety in its runs. While I didn’t get the chance to ride on their more difficult slopes because I was with my beginner friend, their “Lower Robbin’s Run” and “Upper Shawneehaw/ Lower Shawneehaw” runs weren’t too terrible given all of the complaints I have made thus far.

A majority of their slopes, such as the “West Bowl” run, were closed due to the lack of snow as well. I can’t fault them for the state not getting any snowfall, but the choices between the rest of the slopes that were open didn’t make the $50 lift tickets incredibly worth it and left me at the end of the day feeling a little bored.

While I think it was a worthwhile experience getting to know Beech Mountain Resort so I could say I’ve snowboarded on all of the Western NC mountains, I think the next time I’m down there I’ll stick with Sugar Mountain (as should everyone, in my opinion).

Stay tuned next time for my trip to Quebec City with the Penn State Snowboard Club, and my review of Mt. Stoneham in Canada!

Sources:

https://abc13.com/beech-mountain-pipe-burst-water-explodes-ski-resort-bursts-under-lift-life-accident/11445129/

https://www.skiresort.info/ski-resort/beech-mountain/ski-lifts/l111236/

Following my previous post which began to explore the North Carolina ski mountains, I follow this week with the place that has all of my heart: Sugar Mountain.

This mountain is located less than twenty minutes from Boone, NC, surrounded by the other notable ski resorts in the area such as Beech Mountain and App Mountain. I began going regularly to this mountain after my negative experience with the Appalacian Mountain ski resort, which I went into great detail about in my previous post. In fact, I ended up staying at this mountain for the rest of my season last year because of how much I enjoyed the diversity in its trails and overall coverage.

While the snow that covered its trails is still indicative of the North Carolina climate, their investment into snow blowers (and the fact that they didn’t have them running during the day) was something that skiers who went there definitely noticed.

The trail map for Sugar mountain is definitely a stark contrast to what we saw of the tiny hill for the last mountain I visited. Sugar mountain has multiple parking lots and busses that can shuttle skiers and boarders from parking to the mountain, which, to me, definitely gave it a more ‘professional’ vibe than walking directly from my car to the lift. While it only has three main lines, the way it is set up ensures that only advanced skiers and boarders end up traversing to the summit area. The two groups (those who use the ‘easy street lift’ and those who traverse blue and black terrain) end up meeting at the bottom, which creates a hazardous environment for all parties involved but can’t neccessarily be avoided.

I found that the diversity in the blue slopes, while they were a little easy, provided nice variety and were very nicely groomed. The double black diamond, “whoopdedoo,” was definitely terrifying as North Carolina’s steepest ski slope (at an impressive 31 degree pitch), but had a weird, short run-off that forced skiers to severely limit their speed to not be catastrophic to others coming down “switchback”. Attached below is where you can find a video of a skier taking this slope to fully see how this run rivals some found even on the West Coast or Canada.

Personally, taking the “northridge” – “switchback” – “gunther’s way” by cutting underneath the GW lift was where I found the most enjoyment. While I haven’t tried the terrain park, I have heard that compared to the park at App Ski Mountain, it falls short of variety and length. For the price that skiers pay to go to this mountain (especially during the holiday season or on weekends), I would definitely prioritize all-mountain riding/skiing rather than spending your time at the park.

All in all, Sugar Mountain is a fantastic (and in my opinion, the best) NC mountain, and would be my first reccomendation for anyone looking to ski in NC- but seriously, why would you do that?

Stay tuned next week for a review of Beech Mountain Resort and the controversy surrounding it.

Following a mammoth of a mountain like Vail, this week’s post comes from my dear home of sunny North Carolina. Unfortunately, the warm weather NC is known for doesn’t neccessarily bode well for someone who recently became obsessed with snowboarding. However, one must make do with what they have.

The first (and only) day that I went to the Appalacian Ski Mountain- dubbed “App,” was cloudy and rainy. Compared to the powder of the Colorado mountains, I was dissappointed to find that this mountain was primarily icy man-made snow. Generally in the North Carolina mountains, the overnight temperatures will drop enough to turn the snow blowers on, and by noon-time the man-made snow will melt and re-freeze by night into layers of ice. While this is good for preventing any avalanches, it’s not neccessarily good for a ski experience.

App Ski Mountain comes right off of its parking lot into three hills. As a newbie snowboarder, I hadn’t realized yet that this mountain was really only known for its freestyle terrain (shown on the left of the picture above). The park terrain at App is quite impressive for a NC mountain, with three distinct runs called “Appaljack,” “Appal Jam,” and “AppalTop”. Not entirely sure where they became so into the word “appal,” but we can ignore that.

Other than their park runs, App has three green circle (beginner) runs, three blue square (intermediate) runs, and three black diamond (advanced) runs. The runs took maybe 5 minutes each if you were going slow, and since I (as someone who had been on the mountain for maybe 2 total days) was able to confidently navigate the blue intermediate runs, I’d say that their slope difficulty ratings weren’t the most accurate. Compared to even some of the Pennsylvania mountains, every single run at this mountain would be considered a green circle slope. I’m not sure where they’re able to justify ranking some of these slopes as black diamonds (unless some were mogul runs).

The worst part about the experience that I had driven two hours to get: the tickets. While going on a rainy day wasn’t my ideal plan, the tickets had to be purchased almost a week in advance at the time (during the end of the Covid-19 restrictions) and weren’t allowed to be switched/refunded for weather or any other emergency. While this is slightly more acceptable for a Covid-19 protection procedure, their website still has “Reserve Now” tickets that aren’t transferrable.

Overall, I wouldn’t say that the $70 lift tickets were exactly worth it for someone who wouldn’t spend the whole day at the park. Honestly, even if you spent your day on the rails and pipes of the Appal runs, I wouldn’t spend the money. I’d rather go to Sugar mountain and Beech mountain, which are two ski mountains within the surrounding 20 minutes of App in the NC Appalacian Mountains that I’ll be speaking a lot more positively about in the following two weeks. Stay tuned!

Hi everyone! Since the end of the last semester we’ve officially entered ski season! As an avid snowboarder, the passion I’ll highlight for this amazing season of winter is my ratings and commentary on all of the ski resorts I’ve been to- and the ones I hope to visit. This blog will take a chronological approach- beginning with where I first learned to snowboard: Vail, Colorado.

A family-and-friends vacation in December 2021 started my journey with snowboarding. It is here that I first learned to appreciate not knowing how to do everything by yourself. As an overconfident teenager, I took to the slopes on the first day armed with rentals and a wiki-how article. My family of avid skiers weren’t able to help me navigate strapping my feet to a board, and I was incredibly determined to not have to take lessons from anyone.

I went back to the hotel four hours later bruised and, admittedly, crying- already having signed up for lessons the next day. Unfortunately, my instructions didn’t help me as much as I thought they would. As humiliating as my first day was, I am glad I had the experience that day of failure to guide me and the resolve to not give up. My second day, however, allowed me to meet others who were also gaining their bearings and to connect with others who could boost my spirits and persuade me to keep going. Here, I was actually able to appreciate the mountain and get down some fresh snow.

Overall, Vail’s resort boasts one of the most impressive trail systems in the U.S, with its infamous “back bowl” backcountry terrain. It has over 270 trails, spread across 33 lifts. Even in the height of the holiday season, I found that there is enough mountain that skiers and boarders don’t feel very crowded.

As I gain more knowledge, I have come to see the issues with Vail Resorts (including, but not limited to running small companies out of business, creating monopolies on ski resorts, hiking prices and overall making skiing less accessible), and I don’t think I’d go back to that specific resort any time soon- especially for what they are charging. However, skiing in Colorado is leagues above anything the east coast could provide, and the ability to be able to go to a mountain that impressive is a gift on its own. I had a fantastic experience being able to learn to snowboard on that mountain that I immediately became obsessed as soon as I came back to North Carolina- which prompted the next season of mountains I visited. In upcoming posts, I will talk about my home-state mountains and my experiences with Pennsylvania mountains as I moved to Penn State.

Until next week, happy shredding!