• Women skiers, this is the place for you -- an online community without the male-orientation you'll find in conventional ski magazines and internet ski forums. At TheSkiDiva.com, you can connect with other women to talk about skiing in a way that you can relate to, about things that you find of interest. Be sure to join our community to participate (women only, please!). Registration is fast and simple. Just be sure to add [email protected] to your address book so your registration activation emails won't be routed as spam. And please give careful consideration to your user name -- it will not be changed once your registration is confirmed.

What would your fantasy ski area be like?

ski diva

Administrator
Staff member
Here's a fun mind game: if you were in charge of a ski area, what would you want it to have? Let your imagination run wild. Let's see where it takes us.
 

litterbug

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
A heated pad under the lift maze to warm up my boots.
Yes, I know, I just posted that I'm mildly against heated lift seats for fear of getting overheated and sweaty, but that's because they're close to my core, whereas momentarily warm feet would feel nice but wouldn't make the rest of me feel too warm.
:loco:
 

artistinsuburbia

Angel Diva
hmm..."a skier's license" to obtain a lift ticket....basic fundamentals such as controlled turns test required. It would make the mountain so much safer. Still wouldn't weed out the too fast jack wagon that thinks he's cool weaving in and out of everyone's line, but it's a start.
 

VickiK

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Taking off from @litterbug 's post... Installed on the ski lift, as chair comes in on the other side from where you're standing there waiting to it, a big blower to dry off the seat with one or two strong blasts of hot air.
For the cell phone-challenged set, community chalk boards for communicating with lost ski buddies.
 

altagirl

Moderator
Staff member
Taking off from @litterbug 's post... Installed on the ski lift, as chair comes in on the other side from where you're standing there waiting to it, a big blower to dry off the seat with one or two strong blasts of hot air.
For the cell phone-challenged set, community chalk boards for communicating with lost ski buddies.
They have community white boards at Alta at the main lift.
 

Inoffensive Nickname

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Since we're talking fantasy here and I'm a flatlander, I'd build a 5000 ft. mountain (I live at about 700 ft., for reference) within a 30 minute drive, that stays cold and snow covered year round, even while it's in the mid 80's everywhere else, with lots of different type of terrain and skill levels. The employees all get paid amazing salaries, lift tickets are dirt cheap, there's at least one fresh powder day every week, and plenty of groomed runs for the less adventurous. Also, staff will get wholesale pricing on hard goods, including skis and boots.

Laugh at me, but I pass a landfill every day on my way to work, and I look at that "mountain" which is as large as a few of the ski hills around here, and find myself designing runs and determining where to put the lifts. If it weren't so toxic, it would be a great way to repurpose defunct landfills.
 

geargrrl

Angel Diva
Landfills get repurposed all the time. Any contemporary landfill is highly regulated and monitored, lined to prevent any leakage into groundwater, and monitored for both air and water contamination. Toxics and hazardous wastes usually go to a landfill that is specifically designated for that kind of waste.
Here is an article about landfills being turned into parks. https://webecoist.momtastic.com/200...en-10-landfills-turned-into-nature-preserves/

(caveat: DH's company is in the business of landfill environmental monitoring. He puts in systems at new landfills, monitors old landfills both open and closed, and deals with true site contamination. That might be someone who has been letting the locals throw anything and everything into a gully behind their barn (illegal dump sites), or an old landfill that was not properly built and then ignored.)
 

callmijane

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Free refills on every run, dog friendly, brewery at the base (no condos, please), bathrooms on the main level of the lodge, and lovely tree skiing. And heck, while I'm at it, right next door to me.
 

mustski

Angel Diva
I would like a mountain divided into areas - with a base lift in each area - all accessing different peaks - to spread out the arrival crowds. At least one of those should be a gondola. RFID access for sure. Plenty of different spots to eat also spread out around the resort. I would also like if each area had variety of terrain to allow friends of differing abilities to ride the lift up together, but still split off to ski. Of course, I would place this resort in a major snow zone so there would be fantastic conditions. I would also add an excellent demo department with well maintained skis. Reasonable lift prices, free parking, cheap beer/wine, good food at reasonable prices. Truthfully, if I have all that...I'm good to go. I don't need anything else.
 

snow addict

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I would like a mountain divided into areas - with a base lift in each area - all accessing different peaks - to spread out the arrival crowds. At least one of those should be a gondola. RFID access for sure. Plenty of different spots to eat also spread out around the resort. I would also like if each area had variety of terrain to allow friends of differing abilities to ride the lift up together, but still split off to ski. Of course, I would place this resort in a major snow zone so there would be fantastic conditions. I would also add an excellent demo department with well maintained skis. Reasonable lift prices, free parking, cheap beer/wine, good food at reasonable prices. Truthfully, if I have all that...I'm good to go. I don't need anything else.

Come to Europe. This is pretty much how it is over here, though parking can be busy...
 

VickiK

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
This thread makes me think of the many fantastic memories I have, of skiing or of trips combined with skiing, or the people I was with on those trips.
 

marymack

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Another note about landfill skiing, I remember reading an article about a converted landfill to ski hill and they actually used the methane gas from the decomposing material to power the lifts!

I agree with the "license to ski". It could be programmed into the RFID card and you wouldn't be allowed onto certain trails or lifts if you hadn't passed a level test. Maybe one test going from green to blue terrain, one for entering advanced (beyond single black trails) and one for the terrain park (this could be a quick written safety test like some places already do).
I would also have signs suggesting what trails a learning skier might try next. I remember when I was first learning I never knew what trail I should go to next when I felt comfortable because as we know there can be a big difference between an easy blue and an almost black blue trail.
Also lots of "blue" glades. And bumps that never get hard or icy.
 

Moonrocket

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
random bathrooms scattered about for the toddler/ pre-school set. There's nothing like hearing I have to potty half way up a lift with no services at the top.

Gear shelves or baskets in the bathrooms for when you have two helmets, 4 mittens etc etc and are trying to hurry as fast as possible without letting any of it touch the floor.

wow have my needs changed :-)

massages at the top of the mountain would be pretty sweet! 15 minute chair massage.
 

abc

Banned
I'm a simple girl. My ideal ski mountain will have a good variety of groomer, powder (when it snows), bumps (when it doesn't) and trees. Different steepness from shallow to steep to suit my mood of the day. All in equal proportion! (instead of 90% groomer with a tiny bits of bumps/trees! Or 90% "intermediate" steepness)

I don't care very much about where the bathrooms are located.

I'd prefer they serve REAL food at decent prices. But that's not a fantacy any more. Many resorts have that now.

If a mountain has less than 90% groomer and less than 90% of that are "intermediate", there won't be too many skiers on them! So I don't need to worry about the ability of the other skiers on the mountain either. No need for them to get "licensed", natural selection will do just fine!

So basically, terrain. That's all it needs, the right terrain. The rest are just gravy.
 

litterbug

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
RFID access for sure.

I think all ski areas of a certain size should be required to use RFID cards; little areas might lose money on it, so they'd be exempt. Of course, skiers would have to buy the actual card (about $5), but the areas I've been at that use them discount daily reloads by $5 whether you do it at the window or online, so the cost is sixes to the skier while giving them the option to skip the ticket window by reloading online, and cheaper for the resort because they don't have to sell or scan paper tickets.

Oh, and I want the area to maintain at least one area of reasonably sized beginner bumps on not-terribly-steep terrain. I'm just at the point where I can make a few short turns in a row, but too much of the time the bumps, which have all gotten big and then iced up, are steep and a terror for those of us who still fear losing control and getting launched into outer space. :eek: And when the snow is fresh, I'm out looking for the soft stuff, not thinking about improving my skills. :rolleyes:

(ETA that by "beginner bumps" I mean for beginning bump skiers, not beginners...)
 

mustski

Angel Diva
I 2nd the idea of grades of bump runs. I haven't been able to teach DS to ski bumps at all in SoCal. There aren't any bump runs at the local mountains anymore. I'm not sure why because there used to be. Snowboardering maybe? At Mammoth, the bump runs are intense. I won't ski them usually. If Scotty's bumps up, I'll hit that - maybe. DH takes him on that if and when they allow it to bump up and we happen to be there at that time.
 

litterbug

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I 2nd the idea of grades of bump runs. I haven't been able to teach DS to ski bumps at all in SoCal. There aren't any bump runs at the local mountains anymore. I'm not sure why because there used to be. Snowboardering maybe?
It may be snowboarders, but my guess is that they're groomed out because most skiers don't like them or just can't ski well on them. That leaves the bumps on ungroomed black runs that are steep enough to add exposure to the challenge of the bumps. People still seem to learn; from the chair I see people picking their way one turn at a time, which is probably the only way I'm going to learn to ski them. I'll get some instruction first, although at this point that's likely to consist of working on short turns.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
26,235
Messages
497,609
Members
8,503
Latest member
MermaidKelly
Top