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Orbitz recently published a top 10 list of their ski and snowboard vacation resorts for the 08-09 snowboarding season, as ranked by bookings on their site.  So there are mostly US resorts on this list.

I’m happy to say that I’ve been to 4 of them…

• Lake Tahoe  (#1) - They only have reviewed Heavenly out of all the resorts around Tahoe, but it’s a great resort.  I have personally been there and to Kirkwood.  The day I rode Heavenly, it was massively snowing and we had to stick to a small section of the mountain.  I like Tahoe as a destination because my friend Bucks has an annual rental house there in South Lake, Kirkwood and Heavenly are not a far drive.  The only thing is getting up to Tahoe from San Francisco, watch for the traffic.  Plus, we can always go out in classy Reno in the nighttime.  ;-)  And there’s so many resorts right there!  Lots of options.  I will have to hit up North Lake next time I go.
• Park City (#3)  I have only been to Park City once, but will soon be there again!  Park City is convenient to fly to (just 45 min. away from Salt Lake City) and there are 3 resorts very close to one another for easy mountain access.  One thing to note though is that the Deer Valley Resort is a ski-only one!  I rode the Canyons when I was there.  Will definitely check that out again on this year’s trip.  I’ll have more details after that trip, because I hit Park City about 5 years ago and don’t remember too much.
• Vail (#4)  Ah, Vail!  I need to book my annual trip there!  I have gone every winter for the past 3 years, most recently in Feb. 2008.  I love going to see James, he lives there and was a ski and snowboard instructor for a long time so we always had an “in” at the various bars etc. and he knows everybody on the mountain.  He also teaches me when we’re out there riding together, so I basically get a free professional lesson!  Vail is beautiful, huge, and easy to get around both on and off the mountain - they have a free town shuttle bus which runs till late at night.  All sorts of runs and terrain will keep you from being bored.
• Whistler (#9)  Whistler is another place that I made it to last season, so luckily my memory of the resort is fresh.  I loved Whistler in that the village is really big and there’s lots of shopping and restaurants to enjoy.  The mountain is big and amazing too, because really it’s two mountains, Whistler and Blackcomb.  We were lucky enough to enjoy two full days of new snow.  And the people are super cool and nice!  More details are in my trip recap.   It is about 2 hours outside of Vancouver and there’s a few shuttle options for you to get to Whistler from there.

It’s not surprising that 6 of the top 10 resorts are in Colorado (lucky Shay!)  I need to get to Aspen one of these day too.  Although it’s my favorite place, Mammoth is not on this top 10, probably because it’s so hard to get to - and because you don’t really need Orbitz to book a trip there, just get in the car and drive!  That said, it’s definitely not as accessible as the other resorts on this list, and has a ways to go to get as “world class” as them, but it’s on its way up with the new Village, the Gondola, and let’s face it - it’s still my favorite.

What do you think of this list?  Has anyone been to all of the destinations listed on the Orbitz Top 10?

What a nice surprise to come back from my Caribbean vacation yesterday and see emails from Juicy that she and Leila booked the condo in Jackson Hole.  Woo hoo!  Can’t wait for this one - we love new snowboarding vacation destinations.  If anyone has any tips about secret runs, favorite restaurants and bars, or other insider local knowledge, let us know!

We’re staying at the Loveridge Lodge  for the first week of January.  Now it’s time to herd some cats and get the group organized and paid up

(Image courtesy of Jim at IgoUgo.com)

(blowing the dust off this blog from its summertime hiatus)

It’s time to get ready for snowboarding season again!  The summer is over and it’s already October - where does the time go? - and we are planning our trips for the year.  First big trip will be to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in the first week of January.  I’m sure there will be other trips before that, specifically to Mammoth Mountain and Snow Summit just to get ready.  We really don’t gear up for big trips until after the first of the year.

With that said, I’ve been bookmarking some news I’ve seen in the past month or so, that might be of interest as you get ready to hit the hill yourself!

• If you’re shopping for a new snowboard, you might want to check out the Transworld Snowboarding “Season’s Best Boards” article for recommendations.
•  To that end, Mervin Manufacturing, who makes Gnu and Roxy snowboards among others, posted some cool info about their environmental initiatives during snowboard manufacturing.

For what it’s worth, I recommend you check out fellow snowboarder bloggers Adam over at Highly Obsessed and Shay over at Shayboarder - both have been significantly more active than we here at Snowboard Women have been this summer.  I have particularly been enjoying Shay’s Snowboard Industry Profiles, where over the summer, she interviewed about 30 people who work in the snowboarding industry and posted the transcripts on her blog.  Great stuff!

So, as for this blog, there’s more to come as we really get in the spirit of the winter season

Jessie and I are headed up to Mammoth again this weekend (March 1-2) for a last-minute trip. We just decided on Tuesday night that it was time to hit the mountain again, since Mammoth has recently received another 20+ inches of snow!

After deciding that we were going snowboarding again this weekend, the next order of business was finding a place to stay. And with that came the idea for this post. Here are some of the resources that I use to find Mammoth condos, hotels, or house shares online. Or any other resort for that matter!

Vacation Rentals sites: These sites are good if you want to book a house/condo specifically for a getaway with a group of your own and you want more amenities (e.g. full kitchen, a private hot tub) than what a hotel would offer.

• VRBO.com - You can find anything from small studios for rent, up to giant 12-person houses in the Mammoth area. Typically you need to look pretty far in advance from when you want to travel, especially for the nicer places. Handy availability calendar lets you check for vacancies.
• VacationRentals.com - Their user interface is a little friendlier than VRBO; icons on the listings page let you see at-a-glance what each listing offers without a lot of clicks.

Snowboarding/Skiing Groups: Just yourself or a few people, and need to find a place to stay without the hassle/expense of renting a condo or hotel for a few nights? Check for groups/message boards of like-minded snowboarders or skiers in your area; oftentimes group members will post vacancies in their properties. (ps - That’s how Jessie and I found our place to stay this weekend!) These are some of the Mammoth groups we belong to.

• Mammoth SnowLovers - Active message board on Yahoo Groups for SoCal skiers and snowboarders; lots of rideshares, houseshares, trip planning, and advice is regularly posted.
• Mammoth Ski and Boarder Group and Mammoth & Beyond Ski and Snowboard Group - two Meetup.com groups of Los Angeles-based snowboaders and skiers. Sometimes I see special trips posted in addition to the usual carpooling, vacant condos, and other notes.
• Time-Outdoors - our friend “Uncle Krusty’s” site; the site is ‘an online community for outdoor enthusiasts.’ Fun group of members, he organizes many trips per season to Mammoth, Utah, Colorado and other snowboard/ski destinations.
  

Hotel Booking Sites: Sometimes you just want to get a hotel and be done with it, or you have a last-minute need for lodging. I recommend using metasearch travel engines to find cheap hotel rooms in your favorite ski destinations.

• Kayak.com - This site does all the legwork for you; searches 140+ travel sites at once and lists them, then you can pick the cheapest one! No need to go to other sites.

Now get out there and book a trip - it’s only the end of midseason and we’ve still got a few months of good snow left!

Bright and early on Friday, Feb 15, we got on board our 7am flights to Denver for our weekend in Vail. I had a rough flight that was very delayed which resulted in basically a 13-hour travel day when I finally arrived!

Wanted to make it an early night that night because of our very early flights, and because we wanted to get on the mountain and get a full day in. But on our shuttle bus back to the hotel from Vail Village, we met the fabulous Tina and Todd, a really fun couple also from Southern California. With their help, we persuaded Joe, our shuttle bus driver, to stop at the liquor store and get some beers! We relaxed w/ a few beers in the hotel but still went to bed pretty early.

Saturday: Today we hit the hill by 10am. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the snow was in great condition - although a little icy at first it softened as the day progressed.

We took a few mellow runs to warm up, and began making our way over towards the section above Vail Village. After a few hours on the runs around Chair 11 and Chair 4, we took a lunch break and I ended up meeting with James, my friend from college and current Vail Mountain employee. He was great to ride with - as a snowboard instructor, he helped me a lot with some turn techniques. It’s like a free lesson! I also like riding with him because he flies down the mountain with great style, and it was really fun and challenging to follow his lines as we carved huge S’s over in the China Bowl. I was stoked to ride with someone better than me, cuz like I always say it makes me step up my game. He even said I had improved drastically since my last trip to Vail last March.

We stayed out till the mountain closed that day! For apres ski we hit Garfinkel’s in Lionshead Village for a few pitchers of Blue Moon and some chili fries (so healthy!)

That night, we were surprised to learn that DJ Z-Trip, the mashup dj who mixes in fun stuff like “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” with Tribe Called Quest, and just kills it on the turntables, was playing in a small bar that night about 5 miles outside of Vail. I had seen him perform in front of thousands at New Years Eve Giant Maximus, and now he was playing to a 400-person club in Avon, CO? We promptly made plans to head over there, and rode with Jonathan from Hummer Taxis of Vail - he kept us very entertained about single life in Vail and offered us healthy advice such as “keep your legs closed” - um, thanks… Anyways, we got to the Agave bar in 15 minutes, and found a table to use as our home base. Z-Trip came on at 11 after DJ Troublemaker, and got the crowd moving.

We danced like crazy till we had to leave. We had such a great time! Had Jonathan pick us up again before the bars closed, so we were back to the hotel by about 1:30am.

Sunday we got up late and aimed for a half-day because we were tired from the Z-Trip show and plus it was snowing so we figured the visibility would be crap. By 11ish it was only snowing intermittently so we got our afternoon tix and headed up to Lionshead after our breakfast of Snack Wraps from McDonald’s. Bad mistake! I ended up getting what I thought was food poisoning from (I think) a packet of mayonnaise that I ate with my Micky D’s, and was doubled over with stomach cramps the entire afternoon. I couldn’t even ride that day… bummer! I took one run and then had to go lie down in the Eagles Nest lodge, and finally made my way back to the hotel where I spent the rest of the afternoon in bed. The other two stayed out and rode the Chair 26 side of Vail all afternoon; they had a good day hitting the Bwana run a few times.

With the help of some Gas-X my stomach pains went away by 6pm and I felt much better. We booked reservations at Terra Bistro and enjoyed a wonderful dinner and some awesome wine (K Syrah, out of Walla Walla Washington of all places!)

After dinner it was back to the Red Lion where it was definitely the mountain town ratio in full effect - probably 8 guys to 1 girl. As I learned in the Virgin Islands though, “the odds are good but the goods are odd.” So true. Lotsa randoms out there and I even witnessed quite a few cougar women. Fun though! We found Antonio, a guy we met at Z-Trip, and hung with him and his friend Nate. I also met a lot of new Hotties on the Hill, who I’ll be posting over the next few days.

Red Lion closes at midnight every night, because they want the drunks out of their bar according to our waitress, so next we headed to Samana. I hung out with some fun guys from Dallas who promised me they’d meet me at 8:30am for a morning of riding before I had to go to the airport. After some dancing, we closed that bar too, and I took the “drunk bus” (nickname for the free city bus in Vail) back to the hotel, with the help of new friends Taylor and Dave.

Monday - I got up at 7am to finish packing my suitcase and get ready to take the 8am hotel shuttle. I was at Lionshead buying my ticket and waiting at 8:30 for those Dallas guys! They ended up flaking out, so I rode the entire morning by myself. I spent the bulk of the day over in the back bowls - hitting China and Teacup over and over. There was about 8″ of new powder from Sunday’s snow showers in many sections of the bowls.

Not hard to find untouched runs! I am not that used to riding in powder, so my first run down a super thick powder section had me falling 3 times in a row. If I was a skier I probably would have yard-saled. But then I got the hang of it again, and was cruising with the bright the blue sky above me just floating through the powder with wide and fast turns. I found a cool tree section and powered through right under the Orient Express chairlift. Watch this YouTube video I took going thru the tree section, complete with a fall caught on tape… haha!

The snow was thick and deep but not heavy, it was cold so it didn’t melt and have a chance to ice up; it stayed flaky and soft! It was a great morning, and totally worth being so tired! I definitely made up for not riding on Sunday. Explored the back side more than I ever had, but I still didn’t make it to Blue Sky as there wasn’t enough time. It was so empty, hardly anybody was riding/skiing that day! I had to cut the day short and meet the girls at noon so we could drive back to Denver and catch our flights home.

We’re all exhausted but agree it was an amazing weekend, and we are going to make it an annual thing! Maybe next time we’ll actually get you-know-who on a few runs

View more pics on our Flickr page.

So the girlies and I headed up to Whistler in the begining of January. The 5 days were definitely not enough for us, but we got a good taste of both mountains and the village. Whistler is a must for anyone who loves long runs, great pow, and a village filled with renowned restaurants, bars and clubs.

* Best beer- Whistler Brewhouse pub-4355 Blackcomb Way

A variety of microbrewed beer handcrafted right on site. Try the red truck brew! Beers the size of your head, beer tastings and some damn good grub in the bar. The pesto chicken panini and the artichoke dip hit the spot. They had a fire roaring, and we sat in booths next to the windows watching the snow fall.

* Best Apres ski-Garibaldi Lift Company- Base of the Whistler gondola

The GLC is a must! An outside area with heat lamps, snow porn on the big screen, cuties everywhere, a plethora of beer, and not to mention amazing music! The DJ was playing down tempo on Thursday and we saw a band there on Saturday that did Rock requests. I loved that you can ride right in off of the mountain!

* Best Restaurant-Seven Tapas- Main Street

When you feel like munching out on a bunch of different dishes hit this place! We had the pulled pork sandwhich ( spicy goodness!), a warm spinach salad with walnuts, and chicken satay. We didn’t feel too full when we left, the prices were very reasonable and it is open till midnight. Late night munchies are needed before a night of drinking at the club :)  Don’t want to miss riding because your hung over!!

*Best Nightclub - Garfinkles- Main Street

Thursday night is the night to be here, locals night! A huge dance club, 2 bars, and a horseshoe shaped stage for all you attention mongrels (you know I was up there!). The DJ was spinning hip hop, house, and dance. We shaked our booty’s till closing and actually wound up back there again the next night.

* Best run- Franz’s run- Whistler Mountain

Since the top was closed we set out to find a cruising intermediate run that wasn’t crowded. We found the run of the day! You can access Franz’s by the Whistler village gondola to the top. Take Little Red Run to Franz’s then to Lower Franz’s. The 20 minute run ends at Whistler Creekside which had no lines and was perfect for the stormy day.

We also found another run off of Franz’s called Kadenwood, practically untouched and full of pow! WOOHOO! In between runs we hydrated and danced to the Beastie Boys at Dusty’s backside. I actually wondered if this was the best kept secret of Whistler!?

We’ll be back next year I hope!

Be fierce ladies and always stay in control!

See other pics of our Whistler trip on our Flickr page.

Read more about our Whistler snowboarding trip in our other recaps too.

Our first snowboard trip to Mammoth this season!

Had a great time with Stacey (”Miller Time”), Leila, Stacy C., and of course the Juice.

As usual, we stayed in Viewpoint because of its proximity to the village and the gondola.

We arrived on Friday night and chilled with some wine; made it an early night so we could hit the mountain the next morning and be fully rested. Saturday was a gorgeous bluebird day - not a cloud in the sky and no wind. Mammoth had not had new snow in a week or more but it was pretty cold and so the snow stayed nice; there wasn’t too much ice. The mountain wasn’t even crowded! We got a lot of runs in and capped off the day with a break for beer & bloodies at the Mill Cafe.

Saturday evening was a big night of dancing at Lakanuki, where we pretty much owned the dance floor with our party posse of 5. But first, some shopping at Wave Rave - some new
brown Burton Women’s Rodeo Pants for me!

Sunday was freezing cold and it quite frankly sucked. It was 70MPH winds at the top and the temp was listed at 10. (Check out this video of the wind at the top of Mammoth!) The conditions were bad - flat light, lots of ice, and the aforementioned wind. But, we stayed out for a few hours and got a lot of runs in anyways before calling it a day.

Jessie: “It’s how cold at the top?”

Sunday evening was a fun night out starting at Hennessey’s where we met two new Hotties on the Hill who were Navy pilots and in town for a weekend of skiing. Chilled there for a bit and then headed to the Auld Dubliner for irish music & black and tans and a shot of Rumple Minze courtesy of the very friendly bartender. Yikes!

The ride home was uneventful except for our delicious lunch at our new favorite pit-stop - the Country Kitchen! This place was great - definitely a better bet for stopping for a diner meal on the ride home vs. the crazy-busy Schat’s in Bishop. Check it out sometime!

As usual, a fun trip with a great group. And lots of Hotties on the Hill that we’ll be adding to the site soon. Mammoth, we love you… we’ll be back in two weeks!

Check out photos of our Mammoth snowboarding trip this weekend at our Flickr page.

I love Burton’s snowboarding gear so imagine my excitement seeing a store devoted solely to their women’s line. This store is gorgeous. It was about 1000 square feet, with hardwood floors. The clothes are arranged by color scheme and wall fixtures are back-lit with soft white fluorescent lights.

Three-quarters of the store is devoted to clothing, and the rest is accessories and hardgoods. The entire back wall contains their ’08 line of Feelgoods, Feelgood ES’s, and Feathers. I didn’t see many ’07 models still in store. But man, those ’08 Feelgood ES models were beautiful – to the tune of $799!

They had a good selection of boots and bindings – about 10 different styles of bindings, and about 8 boots. The ’07 boots & bindings remaining in store were priced well – I saw some regularly priced at $249 marked down to $149. Interestingly, they only had 1 model of boot which had “traditional” laces – all the rest were the Burton innovative drawstring style, apparently much easier to tighten and customize a fit. I’ll have to try some on sometime!

Accessories – lots of gloves and liners. I have to point out these funky lobster-claw mittens we saw… why would you want to have your index finger AND thumb separated from the other 3 fingers? Thought that was weird. But fun, I guess?

Even the music was perfect - it was kinda indie-rock yet somewhat poppy. Somehow just fit the vibe of the store. Good marketing!

If I had more time to shop and a little more money to spend on this trip, I would have dropped some cash… but I really just wanted to window-shop. And this was definitely the place to drool over cool Burton merch!

Introducing… Tam! He is a snowboarder from Seattle that we met when we were out on Friday night at Garfinkel’s.

And he is a hell of a dancer! Imagine our surprise when he busted these breakdancing moves out on the dancefloor that night:

Tam…had fun with you and your buddies that night. Have a great rest of your season!

This recap covers Friday/Sat/Sun of our trip last week… (read part 1 here)

The next two days, we enjoyed continual new snow which just kept falling! On Friday we rode Blackcomb. We really wanted to go up to the top of the hill and go over the backside to the Blackcomb glacier and to the back bowl, but the top was closed due to the storm. We were somewhat near to the top, having taken no less than 4 lifts to get to our first run of the day, and the wind was absolutely pelting us with powerful gusts and driving the snow into our faces – thank god for goggles and face masks. It was very hard to see at times, luckily they mark the trails with orange signs at the left edge of the runs, and blue at the right. Just keep yourself inbetween those two markers as you make your way down the hill and you won’t end up off a cliff! Needless to say, we did not go back up to the top of the Exelerator chair due to these conditions.

(Gracie and Jessie in line, and already snow is accumulating on them!)

Further down from these freezing winds, we rode up and down the Solar Express a few times. The snow was really nice here and it was a fun blue/blue-black run that wasn’t too tracked out or bumpy. In some places there were rocks exposed – weird because of the amount of snow that had fallen. I was pleasantly surprised by the small # of people on the hill – it certainly wasn’t like mammoth which gets so busy in places. Maybe the snowfall and wind kept people inside? But it was great for us!

Saturday we went back to Whistler Mountain and were stunned that it was STILL snowing… we noticed when we got up that it had pretty much slowed to a light flurry, but then when we made our way up to the gondola to take our first run of the day, it was once again thick, heavy flakes that quickly added up to a new layer of snow on the sidewalks. And the mountain itself was covered with at least 8″ of freshies.

Each run that we did still had areas of untracked powder although our favorite runs of Thursday (Franz’s) were pretty packed-powder and a little icy in places. Definitely not as good as Thurs. conditions. However, we discovered a secret trail under the Whistler gondola – following the signs to Kadenwood, we ended up on a little pathway that had nobody on it, and was just one of those windy, cruisy runs through the trees, thick with powder. Once the run dumped us out of the trees onto a wide run, we were on the skier’s left of the gondola and found these undiscovered areas where there were nobody else. This is where we really found the powder. Both Jessie and I managed to get stuck in it a few times but for the most part it was light, fluffy, and at least 12″ deep or more in places. This really felt like the run of the day, so like Costanza, I “ended on a high note” and took the gondola back up to make my way back to the Village for another après session at the GLC. The gals met me later for beers and we watched the in-house band, the Hair Farmers for a while, and headed home for rest, hot tubbing, and primping for the evening’s dance festivities.

(Jessie, me, and Gracie always ending on a high note at the GLC)

All in all, I really enjoyed Whistler. First off, it was fun to be in another country to go snowboarding. Having just been to Australia two months ago, it was cool to be surrounded by mostly non-Americans. We met a handful of Americans, all from Seattle (it’s only a few hours drive, comparable I think to Los Angelenos driving to Mammoth.) Mostly we met Canadians, and TONS of Aussies. Everybody was really nice – surprisingly so! On Friday, I even got run into by some douchebag on the mountain who was out of control, but he stopped and apologized and made sure I was OK. Unfortunately, I can’t say that about most riders at Mammoth and Snow Summit!

Another random act of Whistler kindness – on one of the traverses, I was about to stall out when a friendly skier cruised by me and goes “grab my pole!” She pulled me out past the flats and I made it without having to stop. How cool was she?

The village is awesome; as I mentioned, it is a huge village and not just a few blocks of stores. I love that the entire town is more or less easily walkable even in the snow. Once you’ve made your way from your condo into the village, you can meander through and shop or eat without getting snow on your pretty little head – because the walkways are under the 2nd-level businesses in each building (the stores are set back from the open-air.)

(Jessie in the Village, going shopping)

Prices in the restaurants and bars were comparable to LA. And there’s a good range of choices for dining – from cheap-but-delicious made to order burgers at the Splitz Grill, to nice high-end sushi. Music in the bars ranged from standard American top 40 dance music to hip-hop to European style-house… sometimes in the same night! It was definitely interesting last night at the Savage Beagle, when the dj mixed in “Shout” and “Tequila” to the mix of Euro anthems. (But that did give us a chance to do our best pee-wee herman moves.)

As we left today, we saw our first peek of blue sky in the entire 4 days of our stay… looked like it was shaping up to be a beautiful bluebird day! But we got some great riding in, and sampled a lot of what Whistler had to offer. I’ll definitely be back!

Want more about our Whistler trip?
- Read Part 1 of my recap
- View our pics on Flickr
- Watch videos on YouTube