Ski Trip Planning – It’s That Time of the Year
Photo by Lala Azizli on Unsplash
Thanksgiving 2025 is in the rearview mirror. For many of us who don’t live in a ski town or close to one, it is time to start serious planning for this season’s skiing. If you’re like me, ski trips start with either a really long, as in 11 – 12-hour drive, or a flight. What follows are the six questions I ask.
Question #1 – where do we want to ski this season? Every year, I try to ski somewhere new. Two years ago, it was Santa Fe Ski Basin. Last year it was supposed to be Sipapu in New Mexico, but lack of snow ended that trip. Entering into our decision is resort an Epic or IKON area, or as someone who is 80+, can I ski for free?
Question #2 – Next is the fun part of guessing whether the area will have snow. FYI, there are 13 different weather forecasting models, and you can drive yourself crazy studying them. Remember, Mother Nature gets the majority vote, and she can be fickle.
I’ve found that one of the better predictors is the answer to the question, Will it be La Nina or El Niño year? Describing how water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean affect our weather is well beyond the scope of this post. However, weather history tells us that in an El Niño year, the ski areas in the Southern Rockies and New England will usually get more precipitation because the jet stream whistles across Southern and Central California and the Southwest before zipping up the Appalachians into New England.
When winter weather is driven by La Nina, there will be more snow in the Northern Rockies, colder in New England, and warmer in the Southern Rockies, where it will also be drier.
Clouding the picture is that there are some smaller climatological zones where this doesn’t apply directly, i.e., Whistler and to some degree, Mammoth, around Lake Tahoe, or the areas south of Lake Ontario. Also, drier doesn’t mean no snow; it implies that the snowfall will be average or less than average. Note, this year La Nina is in charge and take it for what it is worth.
Question #3 – when? Holiday weeks and weekends – Christmas/New Year, MLK, and Presidents Day – are out. That drives dates.
From dates, question #4 is who is going? That impacts dates but also housing, i.e. condo, house or hotel room.
Question #5 – is the how do we get there? If we are flying, we want to make sure the flights coincide with check-in and check-out times/dates.
Question #6 – do we need a rental vehicle? If we do, it means reserving a spot at an offsite airport parking facility that takes us to and from the airport so we don’t have to remember where I parked the car!
So that’s the process. Six questions to answer, and happy skiing.
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