Christy
Angel Diva
I knew I was going to love Telluride and I did. It has to be the most scenic and charming of any ski town in the US West. We got there the Sunday of President's Day weekend and left Wednesday, skiing the middle 2 days. It was pretty busy; restaurants were packed and there were some lift lines. Not horrible, but by no means was the place empty. I overheard kids in a lesson saying where they were from, and there was lots of Chicago and NY.
The bummer was the 42" base. People say they need 70" to ski well, and 50" at a minimum. But this year, that's how it is. It also hadn't snowed in weeks and it had been very warm. So our first day it was hard. Thin and hard, and some runs had stretches with lots of small rocks. It's so much worse here in WA, and I was so happy my boot issues were fixed (different thread), that I just stayed on groomers, slalomed around rocks and still had fun. And the great scenery was distracting.
It snowed 2 whole inches that night and it did improve things a bit. I'd come down worth a cold and maybe it was the sudafed or the elevation, but I was feeling out of it and low energy, though in kind of a happy way. But between that and the underlying hard surface, I didn't feel like doing anything but tooling around on groomers.
I'd always heard that Telluride was an experts' mountain, and I know there is lots of great expert terrain, but I thought there was plenty of intermediate terrain. It wasn't particularly steep, either-the double blues were like regular blues at Whistler or Crystal Mt or Sun Valley, and there was black terrain that was mellower than at those places too. I saw some glades that looked like they would have been great for tree skiing novices like myself, had there been more snow.
There is something I can't put my finger on-maybe that the runs weren't as long as I expected for a mountain with that kind of vertical, or maybe it was the layout (or maybe it was the conditions, and that I felt confined to groomers)-but it wasn't my favorite ski area ever. But I liked the skiing, and given the scenery and the town, overall I loved it and would like to go back. I think snow is an issue even in good years, though, which makes it hard to want to plan a trip in advance.
We stayed at the New Sheridan Hotel right on Main St, and we loved it. It's an historic boutique hotel and is an easy walk right to the gondola or lift. We could walk to anything we wanted, even the little movie theater (only a few doors down). We did the self guided historical walking tour; boy there are some beautiful buildings there. And lots of dogs, too.
The bummer was the 42" base. People say they need 70" to ski well, and 50" at a minimum. But this year, that's how it is. It also hadn't snowed in weeks and it had been very warm. So our first day it was hard. Thin and hard, and some runs had stretches with lots of small rocks. It's so much worse here in WA, and I was so happy my boot issues were fixed (different thread), that I just stayed on groomers, slalomed around rocks and still had fun. And the great scenery was distracting.
It snowed 2 whole inches that night and it did improve things a bit. I'd come down worth a cold and maybe it was the sudafed or the elevation, but I was feeling out of it and low energy, though in kind of a happy way. But between that and the underlying hard surface, I didn't feel like doing anything but tooling around on groomers.
I'd always heard that Telluride was an experts' mountain, and I know there is lots of great expert terrain, but I thought there was plenty of intermediate terrain. It wasn't particularly steep, either-the double blues were like regular blues at Whistler or Crystal Mt or Sun Valley, and there was black terrain that was mellower than at those places too. I saw some glades that looked like they would have been great for tree skiing novices like myself, had there been more snow.
There is something I can't put my finger on-maybe that the runs weren't as long as I expected for a mountain with that kind of vertical, or maybe it was the layout (or maybe it was the conditions, and that I felt confined to groomers)-but it wasn't my favorite ski area ever. But I liked the skiing, and given the scenery and the town, overall I loved it and would like to go back. I think snow is an issue even in good years, though, which makes it hard to want to plan a trip in advance.
We stayed at the New Sheridan Hotel right on Main St, and we loved it. It's an historic boutique hotel and is an easy walk right to the gondola or lift. We could walk to anything we wanted, even the little movie theater (only a few doors down). We did the self guided historical walking tour; boy there are some beautiful buildings there. And lots of dogs, too.
