Advice on USA/Canada Christmas trip

A snowHead

We are a family of four and thinking of a trip to USA or Canada Xmas 2016, does anybody have any advice on where to go. Kids (well 1 young adult) will be 10 and 17 and we are thinking of tying it in with a couple of days city stop off i.e New York. Would prefer to stay in one resort and plan on having a car so probably will have the odd day in other resorts close by. I have my eye on Steamboat at the moment (just like the sound of it), but am open to suggestions all over USA and Canada although I've heard Canada can be veeeery cold.

Advice also on how to do it (independent or tour company) and recommendations for companies to use.

Thanks in advance

A snowHead

IF the Canadian Dollar stays at high levels - or if you buy loads of currency now(!!) - it has to be Canada. At about $2 to the £ it's just so cheap at the moment for hotels, lift passes and hotels when compared to the US. Lift passes are particularly expensive in both the US and Canada - but Canada works out a lot cheaper than the US due to the strength of the £ vs the $CAD.

Going independently always works for us - costs reduced further by Quidco cashback on flights, car hire and accommodation (via Hotels.com, Booking.com etc). Air Transat have cheap fares - but I think they only go from Gatwick nowadays in winter.

We're off on a British Columbia road trip (flying into Calgary) in 2 weeks - and have booked/are in the process of booking cheap yet pretty decent accommodation from about £40 per room per night - eg:

http://uk.hotels.com/hotel/details.html?FPQ=1&WOE=5&q-localised-check-out=05/02/2016&WOD=4&q-room-0-children=0&pa=4&tab=description&JHR=1&q-localised-check-in=04/02/2016&hotel-id=206232&q-room-0-adults=2&YGF=7&MGT=1&ZSX=0&SYE=3

Banff would suit you well for a first time visit - three great ski areas on the lift pass and a nice town for nights out - and loads of accommodation to pick from. There's a free ski bus to the different areas but if you have a car you could also try Nakiska (ski area built for the Calgary Winter Olympics) and Panorama (massive vertical, great area, virtually unknown in the UK). We did both on day trips from Banff.

There are also entertaining non-skiing activities - we did dog sledding and a scenic helicopter flight. There's also an ice canyon walk that we didn't get the chance to do but which looks great and we did snow shoeing elsewhere, which was great fun.

In terms of temperatures, we've been five times (New Year twice, Jan, Feb, Mar) and have never had extreme cold - worst we've ever had was in Stowe, Vermont and Breckenridge, Colorado - both got down to about -35C, which made it virtually unbearable at times.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@mountainaddict, did you notice any difference in daylight? If Canada is much further north than Colorado, would it make any difference to the shortest days in the year? I could imagine CO lifts would be open for another hour...

I've just booked Banff quite late (booked Nov for this coming Easter), but my needs are a bit different - I'm going from Portugal and want a suite to put my two under-10s in. Canadian Affair flights etc were not available so sky scanner etc showed me that BA was as good as I'd get without too many changes (I hate breaking a long flight for an East Coast change). Went through booking.com to get the same little hotel I stayed in for 3 times already as I know they have a suite and it's a good balance of price, comfort and walking distance to town. I've just booked lessons, skis and passes through the official site who claimed it was 30% discount before Dec 1; I haven't been back to check if this was a bargain or just an ongoing sale, I always find it really difficult to calculate those anyway. I started a thread here and was told of a card that gives one free day in 7 but finally didn't get it. Airporter transfers are easy to book.

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Days are short in BC/Ab in December - you can google the sunset times. In Blue River (a bit further north than Banff), you can expect it to be light from about 08:15 through 15:30 or so. I've ridden every "shortest day" there for 30 years... If you're worried about vertical, then take shorter lunch breaks (joke). Seriously, most tourists really don't have the legs for huge amounts of riding - longer days just mean they faf around more.

The Canadian "Peso" does offer good value at the moment, but it comes and goes and if you're bothered about it then you probably can't afford to hedge.

NYC is a great place to visit. I'd look at what flights you can sensibly get through there and make that your driving factor. Right now they're probably getting pounded (with snow), but you probably don't want to ski around there unless it's a great year - this year at xmas they were all green like the alps. Quebec is cool, but their snow is "east coast" (sort of like the Alps only not so pointy: mostly hard pack). That'd work great for family stuff in a good snow year.

If you go to NYC then you need an ESTA and you're in the US so staying that side of the border makes sense to me. So one-hop flights from there (buy all your segments in one ticket, or you will face baggage charges on the internal legs).... Denver sounds like a good option. The skiing's better in Utah, but for families I think Colorado main-stream would work better - it's more Disney. So I70, Aspen and Vail, or smaller places if you like. Check the ski map and make sure you know what you're getting - those places can be small and flat. Compared with Euro snow, it's drier there (but not as dry as Utah). Colorado tourist places are likely to be comparatively expensive, and you'll need a car to get from the airport to the resorts. As usual, there is better skiing and a more authentic experience to be had at the less well known places.

If you want to hop the border to Canada... that's no big deal, but there is another immigration queue. Assuming you don't like a lot of flying, then I'd look at places you can get back to LON from in one hop... so Calgary or Vancouver.

Calgary is cold and (although I like it) arguably miserable in deepest December. Google Plus 15 and think about why it's there. Banff is a fine tourist centre and shares some characteristics with the I70 stuff. Castle-style hotels, separate small resorts... The snow's on par with Colorado and everything will be significantly cheaper. Calgary's an oil/ cow town, so think strippers and money, not tourists there. As stated there are tons of small ski areas, but those of us from the UK who do know about them tend to keep them secret, and in any case they're mostly not family or first-time friendly. Banff is a "destination" place: you can get the bus there and stay there, no car needed. "Banff" does get cold, which is why the snow there is dry. It depends what you want. Calgary can easily be minus 35, although you can easily buy gear to deal with that out there, and actually I usually feel colder in the UK where building design isn't great and moisture is more of an issue.

Vancouver leads most people to Whistler. But Vancouver is a beautiful city where it rains a lot. So when it's not raining it's better for tourists than Calgary. When it rains there, it often snows in the coastal mountains.. which is why Whistler's there. You can get to that on the bus easy enough and it's a destination (no car needed). It's the biggest resort in North America - the most lifts. It's a zoo... because lots of people like it. They have the Disney stuff, but they also have hard core skiing and a clientèle would like to be hard core (think Chamonix, but with way better designed skiing including stuff for all abilities). That would be a reasonable destination... but it's a long way from NYC. Whistler will deliver a better chance of more snow, but it's coastal snow, so wettter than the stuff you'd get at Banff.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

"Calgary is cold and (although I like it) arguably miserable in deepest December. Google Plus 15 and think about why it's there."

LOL. Agree, I stopped for a day in Calgary once (thought Plus 15 was very clever) and don't feel the need to do it again.
But I went to NYC this April (three days working, evenings free to go round the city; solo, no family) and I don't feel the need to do that again either.

You'll need to Register first of course.

You could do a few days in Vancouver then head inland a bit to the lesser known resorts. It a second flight then a bus transfer you book the transfers through the resorts website. Some of the resorts are in can aff brochure,. Most of the resorts have skating, tubing, dog sleds, snowmobile tours, hockey games.
It depends on what your family wants to do. The lifts in the resorts inland are currently open 9 am til 3pm. All the resorts have websites and webcams, check some of them out now. Look at the accommodation thats available, do you want a hotel room or a townhouse lots of choice, hot tubs, bbqs, ski in ski out. In Whistler lots of condo's have access to communal swimming pools, but the down side the hot tubs are communal as well. Good luck and start with the resort web sites.
We buy a season pass in summer when they are cheaper, it the same as an 8 day lift ticket if you buy in May. That ticket gives us 2?% off tickets at other resorts and 50% off tickets at Whistler. It also gets extra money of rentals for condos and skis and money off ski lessons.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@Gregd, Steamboat is fine as far as it goes, but it's not near to other resorts. Thing about the Lake Tahoe or Salt Lake City areas for easy drives to a range of resorts. Or other places in Colorado.

After all it is free

@joneski, is that season pass in Whistler or Banff or do other resorts do similar deals?

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Reading this with interest. Christmas is the only time the schools are off for more than a week in winter (at least in Sweden), and USA/Canada is somewhere i would want to go for 10 days or more to make the journey worthwhile. The controlled/patrolled off piste appeal, but the cost of lift pass (covered in other threads) is a downer. I was thinking Salt Lake. There must a reason the Mormons have their HQ there Very Happy

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St Bernard Hotel in Taos.

snow reports

There are several season passes which are a great deal if skiing for 10 days. The epic ski pass - which gives you access to Northstar, Heavenly, Kirkwood, Park City, Breckenridge, Keystone, Arapahoe Basin. But there are other passes, Mountain Collective ($99 for under 12), Powder Alliance to mention a few. To get these lift pass deals, you have to buy in the summer.

But Park City is just that much lower, that it doesn't get the snow of Snowbird and Alta, but also Snowbird and Alta need more snow (75 inches min base) to have everything covered because of the terrain.

Tahoe is not known for early snow, but I'm taking a gamble, and I booked Heavenly Valley for next Christmas. Well, I booked a house anyway. There are rumors that Mammoth may come on the Epic Pass, which gives you another option in Cal. And otherwise, I'll just move on to SLC or Summit County.

I'm excited! Tahoe is great anyway -
Plan to fly into San Francisco.

@Gregd, here's my experience of taking kids/teenagers on 8 separate skiing trips to the USA/Canada.

In terms of how to book, I cannot recommend American Ski Classics and Ski Independence highly enough. Both companies assemble bespoke trips, and, in my experience, typically offer prices that are considerably lower than direct booking or general-purpose booking sites like Expedia. It's also worth speaking directly to the resort: some assemble very attractively priced packages that include accommodation with a mixture of ski passes, ski rental, transfers and car hire. However, prices for packages are often not finalised until the autumn.

The resorts around Calgary, Denver and Salt Lake City are typically the default option for Brits as direct flights are available. That doesn't matter to you if you're planning a stopover in NYC, so why not try somewhere more out of the way? Big Sky and Jackson are two brilliant resorts that are normally difficult to access, and either one would give you the possibility of an amazing winter trip to Yellowstone. If you have time to spare, you could have a different layover city on the outward and return leg - NYC, LA, Chicago and Dallas are all possibilities for Jackson, for example. The two resorts are very different in character: Big Sky is astonishingly uncrowded and surprisingly large, while Jackson is smaller, busier and tougher but has a fantastically authentic wild-west town to retire to in the evening.

How competent are the kids? Many North American resorts major on difficult ungroomed terrain which might be too difficult for the 10 year-old or which might have insufficient coverage at Christmas. A resort like Jackson might be a little limiting if you plan to stay solely on-piste, for example, which would make Big Sky a better choice as, despite being so remote, it's the largest ski area in the USA.

You know it makes sense.

San Fran is a really nice city, lots to do, quite trendy (which might appeal to the older one particularly!) and reasonable weather. From there you can fly direct to Mammoth Mountain which is a huge ski area, although I haven't actually skied it so can't vouch for its quality personally. I find the West Coast much easier to deal with from a jetlag perspective, because you can get a proper night's sleep on the way home.

When you're looking at flights, worth considering the Dublin routings, which tend to halve the price. West Coast US works out about £1k in club class if you do that, similar to the economy fares direct from LHR.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@Jonny Jones, Big Sky is not known for early season snow. It's also quite rocky, needs lots of snow to cover up them rocks.

The "default" early season resort for us "locals" (i.e. Americans) are: Steamboat, Snowbird/Alta, Wolf Creek. With Park City and the rest of Colorado as runner-ups. I heard Whistler is often quite good early season too. But I've never been at that time so can't tell.

(What's "good" condition also needs re-defining. Here we ski all over the mountain "ski it if you can see it". So if only the groomed runs are open, it's not considered by local standard as "good")

A snowHead

@abc, hence my question about ski level. Many (maybe most) Brits tend to be comfortable only on groomed runs, which presumably would be largely open in any of these resorts. If ungroomed stuff is the priority, wouldn't booking December in advance be a highly risky proposition anywhere in Europe or North America?

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

We did utah for our 10th christmas again this year 11 resorts 30 to 50 min drive from salt lake.
Staying in salt lake is cheaper than a resort this year 2 weeks in a tower suite in the 4* little america was £1k

We have stopped over in Vegas this year but loved LA the year before

See also San francisco

We usually make the trip as close to 3 weeks total which usually equates over christmas to 8 to 10 days holiday from work

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@harvsurrey,

have you always done SLC? Can you report on the snow at Christmas in those years? we know the Alps drama - have you had any of that?

You'll need to Register first of course.

and direct flights to SLC from Paris... that is totally ace - arrives around 3 or 4 pm, departs 5 pm back to Paris.

those are good arrival and departure times as well - my preferred ones, actually.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@HeidiAmsterdam,

Since 2002 the only years we have not been have been 2006 and 2014 , the snow conditions have always been very good , and we probably had our lowest snowfall (base of only 55 inches) in2012

This christmas we flew out to Vegas on the 16th and arrived in SLC on the 21st , it snowed 5 ft in Alta in the first 3 nights. We have never experienced Poor snow conditions with excellent Pistes and great off peak opportunities.

There are a few things to consider though. Lift pass costs are higher if you do as we do and resort hop , but we feel this is ofset by food and hotel prices of staying in the city as opposed to in resort.
In 3 weeks i managed to drive about a thousand miles so there is a drive to resort and back every day ,however traffic in SLC is light ,roads are great and well prepped plus as the resorts are at varying hights and across several different canyons you can chose resort by snowfall the night before and cloud/sun/snow.

2 of the resorts have a NO boarder option great if you ski but not if you board , those are Alta (fab place) and Deer Valley.

Facilities are fab , queues at christmas (what queues) are tiny (apart from park city) and its a great trip .

IN SLC you can rent a house/condo , have a hotel room with Kitchen , or go 5* in the grand america if you really want.

I can witter on about what i love about utah all day long and if you DIY and are not stuck in Park city by a TO you open up to a hugely different experience.

Add it to Vegas , or LA both of which are routes into SLC and easy hops and you can cater for anyone in any party , there is nothing like strolling along Malibu beach before donning skis the next day in Utah

Oh and another good point , the downtown hotels are literally 5 miles from the airport , and you can go From touchdown to in your hotel room in under 45 mins Very Happy

After all it is free

I feel its too much of a faff to stay in SLC with a family, especially when there are so many great motels inbetween Park City and Canyons giving so much to do. 2 great ski areas, outlet stores and food nearby, Main street for bars etc and a little more shopping. Not that much to do in SLC like NYC or LA but its a nice little town. We sat outside drinking coffee in the sun one day and the next it was chucking it down in PC. Great snow and experience, I wish I was going back this year!

There are lots of new hotels in Sandy

The prices also reflect as they get closer to the resorts

Also thats if you want a motel and not a comfortable 4 star or 5 star hotel (out of resort of course)

But agree not being in resort adds faff if all you want to do is ski 9 till 5

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

To Gred D...............

Some serious logistics at hand. Understanding your desire to take a few days in NYC (great call by the way), be same at the beginning or end of your trip is its own master. There is a definite electricity in NYC both pre and post Xmas. After New Year's things settle down and are more relaxed - less frenzied. So perhaps if your travel plans can be made into NYC after New Year's, that might be more attractive. As well, hotel rates go down after New Year's............... I love NYC, am there about 20 days in a given year and it's always worth the price of admission.......

Lot's of wonderful places in Canada. And who knows how the weather will be shaping up come November, December of 2016.....? Let's be honest, that dictates everything does it not? Notoriously the temps in the western region of North America tend to overwhelmingly assure skiing regardless of where one goes. But there are exceptional years that make it so hard. I cannot think of more than a dozen or so western NA resorts (who are large) who do not make "snow", save for several that overwhelmingly leave the bulk up to Mother Nature. One has to make travel plans but I'd hold out as long as possible watching conditions so as to assure yourselves of more than just having to sip hot chocolate and take walks...............

You mention Steamboat. Great place when it is ripping. A definite western American accent. Boots, jeans, Coors, beef and that's just for breakfast.......... But seriously, know this........... It is a totally secluded, free standing resort that is a million miles away from anywhere. Once you're there (a four hour drive from Denver), you are THERE, period.
Many who wind up in Colorado find themselves in the greater Frisco/Dillon/Silverthorne region (two hours from Denver) and for good reason........... be they staying in those "towns" or nearby in Breckenridge, Keystone or at Copper Mtn., you additionally have four other resorts to go to within a 40 minute driving radius........... A-Basin, Loveland, the whole Vail/Beaver Creek thing and Ski Cooper (a real secret gem). I could mention other Colorado facilities (we have a place in Snowmass), but I'll refrain for now.......... Oh, alright....... The greater Aspen complex offers four separate mountains, all of which are great. Lots of good food, too. Snowmass is unique as much of same is "ski in/ski out" and the Xmas activity is one big party. Forty minutes up the road (82) is Glenwood Springs which is worth the trip for its wonderful massive open pool hot springs. Look into that.

Wyoming........... Free standing. Phenomenal and lower cost to that of Colorado. Oh, a one hour flight ex Denver.
Montana............ Ditto
Idaho................ Ditto
Utah..................Great skiing. For all intents and purposes another one hour flight from Denver or a five hour flight from/to NYC. Within one hour from Salt Lake City no less than eight great places to ski. So one can stay at a given resort - some are bare bones, others just the opposite, or one can march back and forth each day and stay in SLC.
New Mexico........... Come Xmas, too iffy over the past twenty plus years. Nice Kachina trinkets and chiles on everything.

California......... Xmas tends to be iffy as winter notoriously arrives in January. But, if things are popping there..........., in a word, wow! With the exception of stand alone Mammoth, pretty much everything else revolves around the great (gorgeous) Tahoe region which is pretty rustic overall, exceptions being Northstar and South Lake Tahoe - Heavenly.
Oregon......... Well, I'm a Mt. Bachelor junkie and I'll let it go at that. Oh, hard to get to so don't bother.
Washington............ Fantastic if things are ripping. Six great places within 3 plus hours of Seattle.

Canada. Once you're in Vancouver, within 1 to 3 hours lots of great places to choose from. Most facilities are fairly well grouped together offering lots of amenities combined with exceptional Canadian hospitality. The same holds true about Calgary, but places are at least one plus additional hour minimum to that of Vancouver. Some of the most beautiful mountains in NA are in Canada. They really are.

Flights to or from NYC out of/to Vancouver and Calgary are available as non stop, so keep that in mind. Major cities in most of NA are fairly well connected

You have lots of choices before you. I'd definitely not even think of lugging skis around, at most boots and poles and trust me, I adore MY equipment. But from a logistics standpoint, you're entertaining big city NYC and some resort(s). So you'll have your hands full. The trick is to make all convey as easy as possible.

One big point.................. If and I say if there is big winter in NA come December, and this includes the Eastern US and Canada....., I would definitely be remiss were I to not consider Mt. Tremblant and that region north of Montreal with Montreal being its own magic land, too. Love. That. City.
Tremblant can be under the right conditions a simply wonderful place to ski and stay.

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@harvsurrey,

Thanks for that - was thinking of getting an epic pass - which would leave me at Park City. So might as well stay there.

I lived in SLC for years, and my dad was Saturday ski patrol at Park City, but we never skied before Christmas... so just not sure.

Any-who - I booked Heavenly from the 17 to the 16th of December, and will book Utah or Colorado after that until January 8th -

I have plenty of friends to stay with in SLC, but yeah... the faffing. I'd rather rent a bigger place and have my friends stay with me.

snow reports

When I did this the direct flight to Denver was a factor [ BA ]. . But if you are intent in stopping in NY then that does not matter.

Steamboat is good and has more skiing than the piste map suggests. Town is also a little funky. So that would make it a good choice IMHO

Avoid Breckenridge as your destination unless you know that everybody in your group will not suffer altitude sickness.

With a car you could stay somewhere in Summit county and ski Keystone Copper A-Basin Breckenridge Vail and Beaver Creek. Check the lift ticket costs and look at buying the EPIC pass in advance it can be a saving.

Utah is pretty snow sure at that time of year, well at least Alta is. I am off there in 10 days time and think the area around Salt Lake City is heaven for this aging groomer zoomer. But it is lots of extra miles in aircraft seats.

I would not risk booking Whistler in advance at that time of year, it can be warm and wet.

Right, I forgot about altitude issue for Colorado, though Steamboat singularly are at the "normal" altitude of 6700'. All the other Colorado resorts have high base altitude, great for snow preservation, not so great for sleeping (or even walk about).

The biggest drawback of Salt Lake City was the beer (or the lack of). But if you're having family along, the drinking part probably has lower priority? While there weren't much to do in the city itself, I dare say since the OP will be visiting New York as part of the holiday, how much more does he care about "things to do" during the skiing legs of the holiday???

Same thought applies to Steamboat. It's a proper resort next to a "real" village. Steamboat also happens to be one of the best setup to transition from on piste to off piste (because there's such a vast "easy" off-piste. And if the OP's family are already competent off piste? There's also cat skiing which can be had for less than a kidney...

Ok, so I'm biased. Those are the two destinations I went most often during Christmas. I had never been disappointed. While I've gone to one other destination (Jackson Hole) and had so far worked out great, I can't vouch for it to be always as good.

You know it makes sense.

Thanks all for the feedback

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Not been an issue with no beer in SLC for some time , the drinking laws were relaxed back in 2002 and scrapped years ago
There is even beer in the slopeside stops these days

Loads of good microbreweries too

However common to all the states it the law on under 21's in bars

A snowHead

I have lived in Calgary for 8 years, so let me know if you have any questions

A snowHead

In Utah, you can buy beer in grocery stores, but anything else is only sold in state liquor stores, which are closed on Sunday's. And you can't mixed drinks in bars, only in clubs, which need to have a membership to, but at the ski resorts, they have clever work arounds for this.

If you are a big drinker, you might feel inconvenienced, but the casual drinker should be OK...

the liquor laws are more relaxed than they used to be, but still a bit odd.

I'm not a big drinker, so I'm not bothered by it.

Help!!

Advice on USA/Canada Christmas trip

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