The Top 10 Ski Resorts In North America For 2019
The Top 10 Ski Resorts In North America For 2019 -Forbes
Jackson Hole has built its name and mystique on the exceptional: steeps, snow, backcountry wilderness. It has spent the last several years, however, burnishing its credentials as a ski resort for all, a place where families can find terrain to satisfy all skill levels.
There’s only so much a ski resort can do with the mountain it has. Jackson Hole won’t get any less steep, but the resort has carved out pockets of terrain that either weren’t open in the past, or ones that previously weren’t well-served by lifts in the past, to use as wider parcels of intermediate runs that give the mountain appeal to those who may have overlooked it in the past.
The most recent offseason has ushered in the completion of Solitude Station, a lodge geared toward families, kids and learners. For parents trying to rear the smallest members of their families into skiers, Solitude Station is a revelation. The 12,000-square-foot building is situated at a mid-station of the Sweetwater Gondola.
This means parents, kids and instructors can do laps on the mellow terrain at the bottom of Jackson Hole all while riding up in a gondola, which can make a big difference to a four-year-old whose hands freeze up quickly.
The gondola has been open for several years, but Solitude Station gives the mountain a new ambience and practicality. Now kids can step off the gondola, warm up inside with just a few steps, and click right into their skis and rip up the bottom of the mountain. This gives Jackson the equivalent of what Beaver Creek has near its base with its wide and mellow area for learning that is serviced by its own gondola, the Buckaroo Express. It’s quite a leap for Jackson.
Solitude Station is an interesting name, given that the place will be flocked by clomping children searching for their next hit of scalding liquid sugar chocolate.
Perhaps it was a reference to Superman? No matter. This kind of facility fills a void for Jackson and again movies it up a rung on the something-for-everybody ladder. It instantly becomes one of the preeminent learning zones for early beginners in all of the west.
The new president of the resort, Mark Kate Buckley, comes from a marketing background (Nike, Disney), and has focused on the user experience of a Jackson skier. It should be expected that the resort, which has done more than almost anywhere during the last decade, will continue to pursue avenues of improvement.
That pursuit has changed Jackson Hole during the last decade. It’s no longer the scruffy mountain with big terrain trying to be a full-fledged destination resort. It’s there. Skiers can tell by the restaurants on the mountain, and by who and how many stand in the tram line.
But it’s still Jackson Hole. Skiers can return to places on the mountain that remain remote and un-skied. It’s harder to find those notches than it used to be, but the Jackson experience has retained its teeth.
The lodging base remains diverse and well-built out on account of Jackson being the primary pass-through town for those heading to Yellowstone in the summer season. The warm months run far busier in the northwest corner of Wyoming than do the colder months, so lodging can still be a value when there is snow on the ground.
Speaking of flake-borne precipitation, Jackson is off to another splendid early season. Storms have laden its slopes with several feet of snow in the early weeks of November this year, setting it up for another strong early season. Jackson’s consistency here is one of the reasons we recommend it for early season ski trips.
Where to stay: The Four Seasons – Center of the action on the snow at Jackson, with commanding spot at the base.
Where to eat: Pearl Street Bagels – best round bread with holes made anywhere at elevation.
There is a group of top tier ski resort towns in North America—and this pack has an alpha. That alpha is Telluride. First-time visitors marvel at the seemingly vertical canyon walls rising on three sides next to town and wonder, “Why didn’t I come here earlier?”
Scenery-wise, there is no North American ski town that competes. Telluride is this continent’s Chamonix. Town itself is on a similar level, as it’s stacked with venerable restaurants, shops and bars, along with a steady cycle of new haunts that keep all of the old standbys on their toes.
Old miner homes mix with tasteful new architecture and an overriding flair for elegant simplicity that would do the Danish proud. Telluride has drawn an irreverent host of characters that make this outpost of the San Juans unique.
Where else does a stretch of $5 million homes abut something called the Free Box, where townies rummage through shelves of stuff—from DVDs to books, skis and jackets—left by other townies, millionaires and ski bums alike. Recent find: a pristine copy of Moby Dick.
The ski runs cut their way through conifers straight into town in such a way that town and ski resort are indivisibly linked with a bind not matched anywhere else in the west. This isn’t a town that has some ski runs; it’s not a town next to a ski resort; this is, unmistakably, a ski town.
Those ski runs that channel their way into town come from a ridge above that opens up into a platter of ski terrain that has something for everybody. This upper area, the heart of the ski resort, is in what’s called Mountain Village. Much of the ski lodging is here, with ski-in, ski-out housing abundant.
A gondola runs between Mountain Village and Telluride, an easy 10-minute ride that is free to all. This lift begins turning in the early hours of the morning and runs past midnight, which means revelers on Colorado Avenue can easily get back to their rented log house in Mountain Village without going near an automobile.
Those staying in Mountain Village can also leverage a free service called Dial-A-Ride, which takes guests anywhere in the Village for free, at all times of the day and night. Mountain Village has plenty of character unto itself, with several layers of lodging, a mix of homes, hotels and condos, built around a core that includes a mainline grocery store and a wide mix of restaurants and bars, including what is the only Starbucks for more than 50 miles in any direction.
The coffee shop resides in the base of Madeline Hotel & Residences, part of the Auberge Resorts Collection, one of the preeminent ski hotels in the west. Madeline is big enough to be truly full-service, but small enough to preserve the true ambience of being on the slopes and sixty seconds away from skiing at any time. The hotel’s pool offers remarkable vistas of 14,000-foot peaks capped with snow and ringed by thick stands of aspen and pine.
Telluride’s skiing serves skiers of varying abilities very well. Beginners and learners will love the wide aprons of snow a placid angles underneath the Chondola in Mountain Village, and Galloping Goose is one of the best green runs in the west that is a true ski run (not a cat track traverse) covering 4.6 miles as it meanders down from 11,800 feet.
Early intermediates can also lap chair 4, and get in touch with one of the best on-snow daily parties in the New World at Gorrono Ranch. Intermediates seeking groomed challenges will find their fill in Telluride. See Forever is a classic blue run that affords skiers one of the best views of the San Juans in all of Colorado, with vistas into Bear Creek canyon to skiers’ right and the rest of the ski resort to skiers’ left.
Some of the most edgy challenges for striving intermediates can be found on the town side of the resort, where a set of steeper blues with fabulous views into town await. These older runs formed the original backbone of the ski resort. Now they offer locals and experts a place to hone their games for the exceptionally vertical terrain that exists on Telluride’s upper slopes.
At the very top of the resort sits Palmyra Peak, which is accessed via the most challenging in-bounds bootpack hike on the continent. At 1,500 feet above chair 12, and at an elevation of 13,320 feet, it requires a concerted effort just to get there. While getting up the slope might take fit skiers 80 minutes or so, getting down is a separate affair that requires not endurance, but skill, and, if one wants to look good doing it, some panache in tight spaces.
The good news is that the snow at 13,000 feet stays chalky and reliable, as long as it sticks to the steep slope.
The convenience, charm and raw skiing credentials of this place make it unique in North America, and a place that should be at the top of any skier’s list.
Where to stay: Madeline Hotel — commanding spot in Mountain Village, top-notch service.
Where to eat: Altezza At The Peaks — best views in Telluride, excellent menu.
Just a year ago, Vail’s Epic Pass remained the unrivaled choice for skiers seeking a diversity of geographies and ski resorts on an unlimited ski pass. The Ikon Pass has remade the landscape, however. This resultant competition of Ikon vs. Epic presents skiers with two passes with resort lineups that are uncannily comparable.