Favorite Ski Villages/Towns?

[shortydude]

Ski resorts all have their own personality and vibe.
The bigger resorts have unique villages at the base or nearby towns.
When I visit resorts I love to explore the local area outside the resort.


I think the biggest adult DisneyLand has to be the Whistler B.C. village.
South Lake Tahoe is a close second.
I absolutely fell in love with the town of Whitefish, Montana this year.
The town at Sun Valley, Idaho has the best food.

What are your favorite ski villages or towns?

[Bad Wolf]

Our favorite destination has to be the ski resort of Monarch in southern Colorado. The nearest town is Salida, which is also our favorite place to stay. Being somewhat remote, we never have problems with crowds, and it has snowed every time we visit! Our Snowbowl season passe give us reciprocity, so we also get to ski for free. Pre-Covid, we road tripped there three season in a row.

Salida is an old mining town that has been converted to a tourist getaway destination with lots of small restaurants and motels. Many of the old miners cottages have been refurbished as second homes or vacation rentals. Great food and live bands make for fun apres ski.

The Monarch Resort is somewhat old school with slow lifts, but we prefer that to being crammed onto high speed six packs. The terrain is fantastic and varied with runs to suit everyone. You could spend a week there and and still find new areas to explore. They also have backcountry terrain serviced by cat tracks. Of course, as I mentioned before, it helps that it always snows when we visit.

Both the town and resort are definitely worth a visit if you don't mind a slower pace far from the madding crowds.

[mvhoffman]

Living on the East Coast, we have a bunch of little ski towns. Some smaller and more personal than the others. I personally have fallen in love with West Dover Vermont. It's a minimalistic ski town with some great little shops, a brewery, and a bunch of nice little restaurants. It is such a pleasure each time.

[Steeps]

Nelson BC / Whitewater. Whitewater is still essentially a community ski hill with minimal base facilities and no condos, but the day lodge has legendary food and has put out a series of bestselling cookbooks. https://whitewatercooks.com/ The mountain isn't super extreme (and I prefer the Horse overall) but is probably the most fun mountain I've ever ridden, with a large proportion of the skiable acres in perfectly spaced glades, tons of powder, and lots of mid-sized drops with good landings. There's a very active backcountry/slackcountry scene based around the mountain, so on a powder day there are big lines at the chairlift for the first couple of runs, and then a lot of the locals disperse into the backcountry and the lines disappear.

Nelson's about 20 minutes away and is like someone took a little slice of the best parts of a city (great restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, night life, music scene etc) and dropped it between the mountains and a big, beautiful lake, stuck a bunch of old Victorian houses tight against the downtown, and kept it just inaccessible enough from the package tour crowds that it stays genuine. You can easily get around the whole place by foot. It gets a bit overrun with hippies in the summer, but the shoulder and ski season are great. I've stayed there while going to school on a couple of occasions. Oh, and three breweries! I like my solitude in the big mountains and my scrappy little town here in Golden, but if I had the opportunity Nelson would be my second home.

It's close to the US border, although a bit far from major cities (Spokane is about 3 hours away by car). Red Mountain is close by, and they would be a great spot for a meetup if anyone was keen for a Western Canadian skiboard rally.

Rossland (near Red) is a neat little town but a lot smaller; Red is about the best mountain I know for everyone of every skill level to have a good time - they have good groomed options for beginners and intermediates all the way up to some of the steepest named in-bound runs I've ever seen. Approaches the Horse for extreme riding in places (and I'm sure there's spots I don't know about).