Hi everyone, from sunny Heavenly ski resort California. some of you may be thinking about doing the Epic Experience in USA and we are there right now (having also done it in 2016) so thought you may be interested in a few tips and insights along our way.
So..... First buy a Perisher Epic season pass. We got ours for $749 Aussie and all the resorts in USA charge minimum US $155 per day. So the Aussie pass is a bargain. Ski all winter in Australia then the following new year ski 11 resorts in USA for free. Book a flight with Qantas. Qantas allows 2 lots of luggage including a ski bag upto 23 kg each bag & 2.7m so we didn't pay any extra for our skis or luggage. Perfect for ski bags with boots packed in them. We flew to San Francisco for around $900 return so check for specials. Hired a 4wd from San Francisco airport. upgraded our SUV we'd hired, on advice from hire co because of Colorados chain, snow tire or 4wd laws for the interstate road I70 between the ski resorts. Car hire a bit tricky as liability insurance not normally included and you can't get it separately if you are a international visitor. Alamo does fully inclusive and after we got a quote we rang the North Sydney office booked and paid through them getting the information we all understood. You don't need the extra excess fee they try to charge you as your travel insurance will cover that. Just check/ get your travel insurance car excess to be equal to the car hire excess. We booked a SUV car from the airport through Alamo car rentals. To get the best price search on a rental site but take a deal with Alamo. Reason being they include unlimited kms, also the tricky insurance is covered and also lets you go into Canada with the car. Not all companies do this and has very competitive rates. We paid about US$45 per day. If you want to drop the car at another destination this adds a few 100$s to the price. Make sure your travel insurance covers the insurance excess. Download a GPS app to your phone called maps.me then download the American maps you need before you leave home. You don’t need data to use them when you are on the road which is really useful. If you do need free wifi to get you going MacDonalds always has it, as do most hotels and restaurants. The nearest ski field from San Francisco on the Epic Pass is Heavenly at South Lake Tahoe or Northstar near Reno. Both about 3 1/2 hour drive from the airport. There are lots of accomodation in South Lake Tahoe use a Hotel App like Hotels combined to search. Keep in mind prices are reasonable Sunday to Thursday then they can triple for the weekend. We normally avoid the slopes at weekends and visit national parks or travel those days to avoid the crowds. Once at the ski field take your Perisher pass information to the guest relations office and fill out forms, get your photo taken and they give you another pass valid in all the resorts in USA. THEN.... go skiing.. Did a 3 day road trip via Reno, Virginia City and Grand Junction. (California to Colarado) then worked our way back to San Francisco via all 10 epic ski fields. Stayed at Airbnb accomodation outside Breckenridge Como depot. A converted renovated train depot. Great place. A bit further than we had expected to drive but we got to meet the locals, had a game night with them and enjoyed all their dogs. FairPlay or Alma would be closer. As planned we relocated to Silverthorne which was a great hotel with hot tub and breakfast. Near outlet shopping centre and brewery pubs, and supermarkets. Able to access all resorts including Vail with short drives, for reasonable prices. Even curtesy buses running from Silverthorne to most of the ski fields. We tried to avoid skiing weekends and went to Denver, got a reasonable motel using Hotels combined website. near to the downtown city area and close to the basketball centre and saw an NBA game with Denver Nuggets buying tickets on a discount online website. Tried to take in an ice hockey game with Denver avalanches but timing didn't work out. San Francisco will be another option hopefully. With the Perisher freedom or the Epic pass. Simply go into any resort guest centre and get a US validated new pass to ski. Link it to the epic.app on your phone. Track your lifts etc. BRECKENRIDGE Car parking $5 per day min to Thursday $12 Frid to Sunday Near to gondola. Free parking at airport lot on airport red. Free bus shuttle to gondola Ski fields v busy at weekends. As close to Denver weekenders Lift times long. Other times great. Long runs varied abilities. Groomed black runs. Big resort. Breckenridge village historical and very pretty. Ice sculpture festival in village Super market (city market in town for all supplies)join loyalty program for all supermarkets great savings. KEYSTONE Free parking near River Run village but an extended walk to gondola. Better option turn right at River Run village and park at Pika free parking lot near to Argentina and Peru lift. V short walk to lifts and nice ski back trail. Long runs. Lots of groomed blues. Very long green 6km run. Nice warming Cafes on mountain. Gondola linking two mountains. ARAPAHOE BASIN Small resort. Free parking on upper road. Short walk to first gondola or shuttle bus. Must show your pass unlike the other resorts with instant recognition through your jackets. Steep challenging basins. Popular with young people. 4 to 6 lifts. Oldest resort. Large snow with extended season. Very scenic road links A Basin and Lovedale ski fields. VAIL Our favourite resort with lots of open bowls lifts gondolas and varied terrain. Lovely village. Busy at weekends and public holidays. A gem with the epic pass as normally $165 per day. Great eating lodges. Favourite was Two Elks at China Bowl. Parking can be expensive at the resort $25 per day plus a long walk through the village to the Gondola. You can park out of town and hop on the courtesy bus very convenient. Drops off at village. BEAVER CREEK Free parking at bottom of mountain before the resort. Elk parking lot is less crowded and first for the bus that fills up. Also Bear and Wolfe parking lots. Drops off at village. Short walk with escalators. Friendly village. Free cookies at 3pm. Free ladies tour around mountain. 10.15am most days. Easy to get around mountain. Ritz Carlton fun place to hang out in between runs. Arrowhead village great fun runs. We stayed at Eagle village. Easy access to beaver Creek. Same distance as Silverthorne to Vail without driving over the mountain or through tunnel. Great eateries and brewery pubs to meet the locals. Take away pizza delivered to the Burning Brewery pub. Pastavillity restaurant great portions near City Market supermarket. (Join the discount program great daily discounts valid at diff supermarket chains too) PARK CITY A real surprise but great experience. Complementary parking only footsteps away from the main lift area. Fills up after 8.30am. All levels of runs but a fun resort. Lots of groomed runs, lots of lifts and a gondola will take you to the other ski area of Canyons. Similar conditions to Perisher in warmer weather caused thaw freeze. Similar elevation. We stayed at Heber City. Clean functional hotel just 18 min drive to Park City. Supermarkets fresh bread and doughnuts picked up on way to ski fields. Park city has a small resort centre with ice rink. Side trips. (For weekends or public holidays) MOAB. Lots of accomodation. Worth buying annual national park pass. $80 as entrance to each park is $30. Arches and Canyon-lands national parks. No people and snow tipped features. Hikes. Highly recommended. Salt Lake City. Mormon Temple square and History museum. Bryce Canyon national park. Hikes easy drive view points to jaw dropping vistas. Zion National Park. Grand Canyon Las Vegas. KIRKWOOD SKI FIELDS Steep and deep. Less crowded than Heavenly. Popular with locals. We had powder days but ice prior to that. Free parking in the village. Little reasonable accomodation in Kirkwood we stayed in South Lake Tahoe lots of cheap motels but on Saturday nights everything escalates in price. Good Sunday to Friday. HEAVENLY. stunning scenery from the slopes way above Lake Tahoe. Had ultra powder drop of two feet over night. Made for an amazing day. However gondolas and lifts were on hold when windy. Free nearby parking or gondola from town centre. Lots of places to eat and a movie theatre in case of bad weather, but get there early to buy tickets as queues are very long. Stay in South Lake Tahoe it's cheap and it's only 3km to drive and park or take the gondola from the town centre. NORTHSTAR A great resort in California. We commuted from Reno and stayed in a couple of casinos. Park and ride system with free buses from parking lots to the village. Quiet on weekdays. At 2pm head to East Ridge for the daily Tost of champagne around open fire pits sitting on beanbags. Splurge at Ritz Carlton for outdoor lunch. Nice fire pits at some of the eatery lodges. Great hot chocolates curtesy of Starbucks and all refillable. Tip. Research your accomodation with hotels combined as a search engine. Then Book your accomodation with hotels.com as you get a free night after you've stayed 10 nights if you join there programme. Use an app called Ski Tracks $1.49 to monitor your runs and kms skied and verticals travelled. Lots of fun and way better than the Epic app that comes with your epic pass. However you get your photos taken all over the resorts ind that gets uploaded onto your epic pass and Facebook. We returned the hire car to San Francisco airport but then had nowhere to store our luggage & skies and we didn't find this out until we'd returned the car. So would have been better to keep the car with luggage in it until our flight left and explore San Francisco. In the end Svend stayed with the luggage and I took the train into the centre for a few hours.
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31/1/2016 0 Comments Another day another rescue. Oh well I may as well admit it. I was rescued again off the side of the mountain again. No CPR. But a lovely young snow rescue girl who this time , after one ski fell off when I slid backwards down the mountain suggested I slide all the way down just digging in with my boots to stop me. Unfortunately I was also under a lift so it was quite embarrassing. Again I didn't get hurt more anxious than anything. How you may ask, do I keep getting myself into such predicaments. Well one word should sum it up. Svend. Well he's a lot more adventurous than me but doesn't know where he's going and although he promises not to take me off a cliff we keep finding ourselves in places we (I) shouldn't be. Plus these resorts are so big we'd never find each other again if I didn't try to ski with him. I am sending him off for a couple of hours at a time. But if we get hurt we'd be in trouble.
So far we've skied Breckenridge, Keystone and now Arapaho Basin. Wow and wow. We've got snow and sunshine and the locals say it doesn't get better than this. It's all pretty challenging either in steepness or run length, or both. I've just been rescued off the side of the mountain with about a 45degree incline. I fell before I went over a ridge and then found I couldn't go anywhere and I was about a quarter of the way down. Svend was at the bottom and started to hike up but I was ok I was just going to have to side slip sitting down at a controlled speed. Slowly and surely I was going when over the ridge appeared a ski rescue guy and then one more. I had been reported but stupidly I said I was ok instead of passing out and needing CPR, that would have been the smart thing to do considering how good looking they were. Anyway they didn't really have any suggestions except to offer a toboggan or keep sliding down, all the while more interested in the weather in sydney. Svend did manage to film my predicament. Anyway,I'm sliding back over the ridge tomorrow and this time I'll do better. Ski patrol keep an eye out for me. CPR will definitely be required next time.
25/1/2016 0 Comments RenoReno
After much organisation we finally arrived in San Francisco complete with way too much luggage. 74kg to be exact. However 40kg of that is skis and boots etc. so it was difficult to cull. We picked up our 4wd hire car and set off arriving in Reno for the night. The drive was a bit hairy through snow and ice that finally closed the road after we had passed and cut off Nevada from California so we were lucky to have got through. We spent the evening in real America at the casino where we watched cowboy hat wearing people line dancing in one corner of the bar and bikini clad electric bull riders in the other. |
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