It is perhaps not the best time to talk about travelling to the US, but it has been a pitiful season in the Australia skifields this year, so it is a good time to look at travelling to the US to get some good 2001 skiing in.
Australia’s season did not start until well into August and even now the snow is either ice or mush.
In the US, the Rocky Mountain resorts of Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone and Breckenridge got their first dusting of snow this weekend. The US season is more than twice as long as the typical Australian season – from November to April and smart skiers can get good prices early and late in the season.
A lot of people are put off by the fear of high prices with the poor Australian dollar, without even bothering to inquire. But the US is such a competitive, efficient place that prices are still pretty good. A good trick is to book in Australia; you’ll get better lift-ticket prices than at the resort window in the US. And prices are lower than lift tickets in Australia.
There are some 7-night, six-ski-day packages with flights from $2525 per person. Ski Express is on 1300 657767. The Vail website is www.vail.snow.com.
The best thing about the US is the quality of the snow. It sounds bizarre, but because it rarely gets above freezing night or day, there is no ice, because the snow does not melt in the day and re-freeze into a dangerous sheet at night. And the snow is invariably deep. Vail, for example, has an average annual snow depth of 7.5 metres.
It means you can engage in that beautiful, rhythmic, bouncing skiing on the powder. See the tracks in the picture. It also means less chance of injury because falls are cushioned by soft snow. This year in the NSW snowfields, there was a higher than usual number of injuries despite fewer people skiing on a lower number of days. Poor cover means more ice to slip on and more rocks to fall on.
Vail is for the serious skier and not much terrain for beginners: 1000 metres of vertical drop from 2475m base (the top Thredbo is 2000m) to 3527m and 33 lifts. And lunatics are welcome to go snow-biking at night.
Breckenridge is delightful because it is an old gold mining town with timber houses and shops, not just a purpose built collection of ski-lodges. More an intermediate area. But its longest run is 5.6 kilometres
Beaver Creek and Keystone are more family resorts with more beginner terrain.
Together the four Vail resorts have 4500 hectares of skiable snow and lift tickets are interchangeable, though they are quite a few kilometres apart.
So if you have had a poor Australian season, give the US a try. Ski Express