#skiing

#skiing

While weather and snowpack obviously influenced snow and terrain quality, they also directly control crowd distribution. The most obvious example is early season when coverage is thin and only a few front side runs are open. Every person on the mountain ends up lapping the same narrow footprint of snow. Once the snowpack sets and resorts move into the core winter, different issues arise.

World renown speedrider (paragliding skier) Valentin Delluc couldn't help himself from using his unique combination of skills to spread Christmas cheers from the skies above Avoriaz Ski Resort in France. Valentin donned a Santa suit and wicker basket while buzzing the towns rooftops and tossing packages. He couldn't help himself but to get a little bit naughty and went in for a railslide on a chairlift haul rope. Wishing everyone a very merry and very rad Christmas!

Sometimes booking a ski trip means finding the largest possible area to explore and heading there, allowing for plenty of terrain choices, dining options, housing, and general adventure. If you're looking for the biggest resort possible, Les 3 Vallées in the French Alps is the place for you. Les 3 Vallées is the largest interconnected ski area in the world, connecting 25 summits with 161 ski lifts.

Skiing in Europe is often hyped up to be significantly cheaper than skiing in the United States, and that certainly seems true if you're looking just at the lift ticket costs. While some of Europe's largest and most well-known resorts cost less than $100 for a day ticket, many resorts not even a quarter of the size of Europe's largest will charge $200+.

Anticipation is a fickle feeling, a jittery mix of adrenaline and hope. Early winter used to make me excited, no matter where I lived in the West. I'd track storms coming in from the Pacific, waiting for Colorado's high alpine ski resorts to battle to be the first to open or watching the snowline creep lower in the Pacific Northwest.

Professional skier Alex Hackel went incognito as a beginner and signed up for some ski lessons in Austria, all just to see how long he could go before the ski instructor realized he was very, very far from a beginner. To pull off the hilarious stunt, he claimed to be a sports journalist from Boston who was filming a YouTube series titled "First Turns", covering the process of learning how to ski.

Skiing These snowy mountaintops are the perfect getaway for any skiers. The Pocono Mountains welcomed the first-ever commercial ski area in Pennsylvania in 1946 and have since been known for their perfect snowmaking abilities, stunningly groomed trails, and slopes of every level ever since. The Poconos offers 6 ski resorts, all of which have ski gear available for rent. For more information on skiing in the Poconos, check out their website, poconomountains.com.

European ski trips are a dream for many Americans, with bountiful stunning carving/groomer runs, wide and long valley trails, and gorgeous huts filling the resorts of the Alps.

Nestled in the Italian Alps northeast of Milan, Bormio may not be as famous as other Italian resort towns, but it has been drawing travelers for 2,000 years. During antiquity, the Romans loved to soak in the town's nine naturally occurring hot springs. More recently, Bormio has become a major hub for outdoor sports, including hiking, mountain biking, skiing, and snowshoeing.

Sasha Berkovich grew up in the Soviet Union at a time when nothing came easy, and nothing in skiing was handed to you. If you wanted gear, you had to barter for it. If you wanted to ride a rope tow, you had to build it, you had to scrap together old engines, scavenged parts, and whatever rope you could find. Sometimes the only currency that worked was vodka. Skiing wasn't a hobby for Sasha back then; it was something you earned piece by piece

Luckily, a small community ski area called East Hill was just five minutes from my house. Nestled beside an elementary school of the same name, it had about 100 feet of vertical drop, a rope tow without handles, and a perpetually idle T-bar. The hill was open nights and weekends and staffed entirely by volunteers from the Camillus Winter Sports Association.

Copper Mountain welcomed Guinness World Record Holder Thomas Hart, a.k.a. "Racer Tom", to their slopes this week as he pushed his vertical feet skied in 2025 up to 15 million. According to Guinness World Records, his record for the greatest vertical distance skied downhill in a year currently sits at 11,421,065 ft. Those numbers were put down between October 23rd, 2024, and June 15th, 2025.

Few ski resorts have quite the same jaw-dropping views as Brian Head Resort. Located in the southwest corner of Utah, Brian Head sits high atop the Markagunt Plateau and offers unbelievable views of the desert and red rock vistas stretching toward Zion and Bryce Canyon. Split up between two mountains, Brian Head serves everyone from beginner to advanced. Brian Head is now scheduled to open on November 21st at 10am, if conditions permit.

What begins as a high-stakes ski expedition quickly evolves into an exploration of the "public land paradox"-millions of acres that technically belong to all Americans, yet remain unreachable because of blocked access points, disputed easements, or unclear boundaries. Post leads a small crew of athletes, including snowboarder Eric Jackson and skier Emilé Zynobia, through some of the most remote terrain in the Lower 48.

It can, however, just as easily overwhelm, meaning most visitors can get their fill simply by sticking to the "Central" region. Here, modernity rubs lightly up against traditional Japanese ryokans (or guesthouses) and an abundance of natural beauty. Come winter, this region-specifically Niseko-becomes an international ski resort, boasting world-class powder snow. In summer, however, the snow lifts like a serviette from a picnic, and Hokkaido is transformed with cinematic national parks, sprawling flower fields, and volcanic hot spots.

When you think of Colorado mountain towns, skiing hotspots like Aspen, Vail, or Breckenridge might come to mind. But amid the rugged San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, the former mining community of Durango, Colorado, is one of the last bastions of affordable skiing in the state-with easy access to fresh powder and all the Old West charm you could ask for.