Call me spoiled, call me a snow-snob, even call me crazy, but skiing in the east is just not as good as skiing out west.
Now before you avid East Coasters who have never been west of the Potomac send me all kinds of hate mail, hear me out. All of you who are claiming I've never even given Eastern skiing a chance, and that because I'm from Colorado I can't ski anyway because I've never had to use my edges, please listen first to my informed, albeit slightly biased, opinion.
Not only have I tried eastern skiing, I actually enjoyed it. Any skiing is fun skiing for someone who really loves the sport. My day at Sugarbush in Vermont was definitely a good time. But just because it's fun doesn't mean it's good.
First of all, there was the fake snow. Now I realize that resorts out west make artificial snow to enhance the early season base and even to add extra top snow to skied off runs later in the year. The difference between the regions, though, lies in the sheer quantity of man-made snow on the slopes relative to the quantity of the white stuff that comes from the sky.
There were runs at Sugarbush that were covered in exclusively man-made snow. This was a phenomenon I had never encountered out west. Trying to carve turns in this fabricated water-product was like trying to carve through liquefied Styrofoam. Obviously, not all "snow" is created equal. Attempting to substitute lots of man-made snow for even just a little natural champagne powder is akin to substituting three packs of saccharine for a teaspoon of natural powdered sugar. A factual comparison:
Killington, also in Vermont, brags about the 250 inches of real snow it receives each year. These natural inches add to the snow produced by the "world's most extensive snow making system." Of Killington's 1209 acres of skiable terrain, 1182 are covered at least in part by man-made snow. The resort is so confident in its conditions that it offers a snow guarantee allowing customers to exchange their lift tickets for a different day if they are not satisfied.
Vail, comparable to Killington in numbers of lifts and trails, receives 346 inches of natural snow annually. Out of its 5289 skiable acres, (yes math geeks, over four times as many as Killington) just 390 receive any fake snow. That means that of all the trials at Vail, just 7.4 percent rely on snowmaking, compared to 98 percent of Killington's terrain. With that kind of domestic competition, no wonder Killington feels the need for a snow guarantee.
Now to another element of eastern skiing foreign to this Westerner: Ice. Before skiing in the east, my idea of an icy run was one that had some shiny spots after a long day of heavy ski traffic, and only if there had been little snow the previous night. There were slopes at Sugarbush that rivaled the ice rink in Boston Common.
Not only were many of the hills glistening in the weak December sunlight, but any attempt to turn down these luge tracks resulted in what I like to call the "crunch, skid, thud" effect. The crunch is when your edge hits the ice, the skid is when the edge inevitably fails to dig in. And the thud is the sound of your helpless body as you hit the cold hard ground and slide to the bottom of the thankfully-short hill.
Which brings me to another point: the brevity of the runs in the east. I know there are exceptions (like the famous seven mile run at Killington), but the average time it took me to ski from the top of Sugarbush to the bottom was significantly less than the time I often spend making it from the summit to the mid-mountain lifts out west. It's not New England's fault that western mountains just have so much more relief than the hometown hills (blame that fact on millions of years of erosion), but I find it difficult to justify paying 75 dollars for a lift ticket for such short runs and limited terrain.
Sure, the prices for lift tickets are the same, if not even a bit more out west, but the ratio of lift time to actual ski time is beyond comparison. Skiing is expensive regardless of the location, but why not get the most bang for your buck? (Or in this case, the less bang because you'll be feeling it significantly less the next day if you fall into fluffy powder rather than onto rock-hard ice.)
My final comparison comes from a much more subjective angle, but I feel it's at least worth mentioning because it adds to the skiing experience. Skiing out west is just so much prettier than skiing in New England. The mountains are more dramatic, the panoramic views are some of the most beautiful on the planet, and the bright blue sky seems infinite when it's not heavily snowing the fluffy flakes that result in champagne powder. Even the evergreen trees are prettier. Aesthetics aren't everything, but they certainly add to a pleasant day on the slopes.
Don't get me wrong, many of the best skiers I know grew up skiing in New England. However, you can't choose where you grow up. Anyone who chooses skiing in New England over skiing out west after experiencing both is either a masochist or just has a warped sense of what skiing should be.
I'll probably ski in New England again as long as I still live in Boston, but after that it's back to the purple mountains majesty and their pristine powder. For me it's Snowmass over Sugarbush.
