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The emphasis on expert trails is taking a gentle turn as the majority of those on the slopes rate themselves as intermediate or occasional skiers.
By ANNE Z. COOKE
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 17, 2002
BUTTERMILK SKI RESORT, Colo:
Surely the trail map for this ski area was mistaken. "Javelin" and "Racer's Edge," both marked as black diamond runs for expert skiers, were too broad, too smooth, too predictable to be called anything but intermediate trails.
At many ski areas, beginning and intermediate trails are sometimes an unimportant part of an experience that the resorts have preferred to promote as outrageous or awesome. But with the majority of skiers now rating themselves as intermediate, or occasional skiers, the emphasis on mighty is beginning to change to mellow.
Though none of Buttermilk's 420 skiable acres include what most skiers would recognize as truly expert terrain, there's plenty of gentle, open runs, steep groomed slopes, gladed, ungroomed terrain and some skiing around the trees.
To be fair, those black diamond runs would have been harder if they had not been groomed. The week we skied there, a 24-hour storm covered the slopes with new powder. But Buttermilk grooms most of its runs.
New last year was Crazy T'rain, a separate park for snowboarders and skiers, with a graduated series of mounds for practicing jumps, aerial 360-turns and other big-air stunts. It is home to the 2002 and 2003 ESPN Winter X Games,
For more information, call Buttermilk toll-free at 1-800-525-6200, or visit www.aspensnowmass.com.
At resorts such as Buttermilk, which is dedicated to intermediate skiers, and these other learner-friendly areas, "easy come, easy go," really means what it says.
Sun Valley deserves its international reputation. But if you are still learning, you shouldn't ski on volcano-shaped Baldy, which most skiers prefer.
Instead, you will be on Dollar Mountain, where skiing began at Sun Valley in 1936. The resort's easiest, best-groomed beginning and intermediate runs are here, along with acres of off-piste (ungroomed) snowfields, a perfect place to practice skiing on powder.
Dollar is a respectable 6,638 feet in elevation, with ski runs on two sides. Three double-seat chairs and a beginner lift go up the front side, above the Dollar Cabin base area. A triple chair on the far side takes you to the top of 6,678-foot Elkhorn summit. Several crossover trails connect the two areas.
If you are an advanced beginner tempted to pass up Dollar Mountain to ski with your friends on Baldy, reconsider. Dollar is easier and less crowded, with a safer learning environment. For parents skiing with kids, it's the only place to start.
Dollar Cabin, at the base, is where the kids' ski school and adult beginning and intermediate lessons meet, and where Sun Valley's free ski shuttles pull into the parking area. The ski rental shop, the restaurant and outdoor deck are also here.
For information, call (208) 622-2001 or visit www.sunvalley.com . Snow report toll-free at 1-800-635-4150.
Northstar, northwest of Lake Tahoe, didn't expect to cater to families. But that's what happened when the original builders selected the ski site, a bowl-shaped valley in the forest, installed chairlifts, connected it to the Northstar Village Base Area with a gondola lift, and surrounded the resort with a community of vacation homes and condo units.
Though Northstar is a major player in the Tahoe area -- 2,420 skiable acres and 300 inches of annual snowfall -- the 63 runs in the original bowl, funneling down to a central point, are too predictable to be awe-inspiring. But they are perfect for beginning and intermediate skiers.
Cabin and condominium rentals include two free lift tickets per bedroom, per night, during the week.
For information and a snow report call toll-free 1-800-466-6784, or access www.skinorthstar.com.
Winter Park, a Denver city and county park, is a 2,886-acre ski area, 67 miles northwest of Denver in Colorado's Front Range. If you have heard stories about skiing here, they are probably certifiable tales of thrills and precipitous vertical runs. But in 1986, the ski area opened up a new world of beginning and intermediate terrain when it expanded onto adjoining Vasquez Ridge.
The next year, the resort added Discovery Park, a separate 25-acre learning park in a broad meadow, with gentle trails and three dedicated chairlifts and a high-speed quad.
Beginning skiers can spend all day at Discovery Park, skiing on nine trails and eating lunch at the Snoasis Lodge. But the genius of the Park is its location, close to the superlong green (beginning runs) on the back side of Winter Park mountain, and to Vasquez Ridge just beyond.
The best thing about Winter Park's network of runs is that families can ski together in the same general area, the experts on the black diamond runs and the beginners on the easy slopes, and still stay close enough to meet for a run or for lunch.
Winter Park's adults' and children's ski schools, an integral part of the program since 1940, are legendary; don't pass up the kind of lessons that will make a difference.
For skiing and accommodations call Central Reservations toll-free at 1-800-979-0332 or (970) 726-5587; e-mail to reservations@mail.skiwinterpark.com; or visit www.winterparkresort.com/.
If you're looking for easy skiing, stay away from Mount Snow's steep North Face. The trails on the far side are rated for expert skiers. But every rule has to have an exception.
On the rest of this big comfortable mountain, four-fifths of the runs are long, winding beginner trails (green) and shorter, steeper intermediate trails (blue).
There's a small Perfect Turn Discovery Center, with a couple of kiddie tows, but confident beginners can head straight for the main slopes, or even the top of the mountain, at 3,600 feet.
Mount Snow, or Mount Pisgah as it was known formerly, is a typical Eastern ski resort, whose 633 acres of groomed trails are cut through a mixed forest of evergreen and deciduous trees. Some trails are broad and long; most are narrow and winding. But how they ski depends not only on pitch and width, but on regular toppings of snow, and in its absence, on snowmaking.
There are hundreds of hotels, inns and B&Bs in the valley, but our first choice is the new Grand Summit Hotel, right on the slopes, close to restaurants, ski rentals, shopping, the Perfect Turn ski school and the main lodge. Or ask about condominiums, on the slopes and along the road.
Call toll-free 1-800-245-7669, or visit www.mountsnow.com.
-- Anne Z. Cooke and Steve Haggerty live in Marina del Rey, Calif.