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Aim: Round
The World Ski Trip For Under $4000
NOTE:
We are not a travel company and do not sell the following
tours. We simply publish the best value tour we can find, and
continue our quest for the worlds greatest powder.
Flights booked
with Clint from
www.travel.com.au . Clint has
been more than helpful and obviously has plenty of experience
in the travel industry. We compared many travel
companies for price and service &
www.travel.com.au had the best price by far. Last
time I tried the Flight Centre's price guarantee they wouldn't
compete with an online fare, this time they wouldn't accept
AMEX without charging me a 3% fee... I wonder what a "Price
Guarantee" is?
Check fares...
click
here.
Our around the
world fare from Sydney was
$1579.00
+ tax
This year our
first port of call was Las Vegas where the city lights simply
blew our mind. The big hotels are cheap... a lure to their
casinos. Pornography on the streets is out of control, adverts
litter the ground for prostitutes and their business cards are
stuck around most traffic light buttons. Not a great place for
kids.
The billion dollar
shopping centres are a must see. Aladdin has a shopping centre
that reminded me of the Truman show, HUGE with stone streets
and behind the shops and cafes the cliff walls rise into the
sunset . It took us a while to realize that the sky was not
real.
We hired a car
from Payless Car Rental in Las Vegas, It felt as though I had
hired a car from a casino. The way the guy almost forced me
into the insurance, AAHHHH. and urged me to buy a full tank of
fuel upfront??? Sure the car was a little cheaper, but it was
tiny, not quite full of fuel and the service was not ideal
either.
We decided to stay
at the Sahara Hotel, all because there was an indoor roller
coaster. Unfortunately Aspen (the kid) was too short to ride
on it. He can jump off huge drops in Austria...
Next... UTAH, home
to the greatest snow on earth... or so they say in Utah. The
great salt lake causes the air to dry and the powder is often
around 6% moisture per volume, it was certainly some of the
best snow I have experienced.
We stayed at the
airport
Days Inn in Salt Lake City. A
nice enough place with free brekkie, mmm hot waffles. There
was a washing machine and dryer (thank heavens, those old ski
socks were getting a bit on the nose), a heated indoor pool
and free hot chockie 24hrs a day. All this is located a minute
from the motorway leading to numerous resorts.
Salt Lake City is
clean and unadulterated unlike Las Vegas. The resorts are
smaller than I had expected, some like Solitude and Brighton
should in my view be amalgamated into one single resort.
Snowbird and Alta already have a deal where you can ski both
on one over priced ticket. Our favourite Utah resort was the
Canyons, A lift from the parking lot to the village goes a
long way in my book, and a gondola from the village to the
kids ski area and huge restaurant can be exciting for the
whole family. There are plenty of runs, green, blue, black
and... red crosses. Skiing through the powder in the Aspen
groves was a buzz.
We bought some ski gear at "Skitrucks"
who sell both new and second hand packages at pretty good
prices. They are located in a warehouse near the airport at
1200 West North Temple Street in Salt Lake City. The shop has
plenty of stock, from old straight skis and beanies to modern
carvers and awesome ski bags.
Our car was rented
from "National", a full sized 2wd rental car.
National were a pleasure to do business with. The car was
great though a 4wd would have been better for the trips up and
down Big & Little Cottonwood Canyons. You can get allot of
snow on these steep, narrow and windy roads. Alternatively the
Park City resorts which include The Canyons and Deer Valley
were easy access for any car as an interstate highway passes
within a stones throw.
Next stop;
Blackcomb Whistler, a truly awe inspiring ski resort. This
resort is huge, with 7000 acres spread over 2 mountains.
Choose from steeps, deeps, chutes, high alpine bowls,
glaciers, launch pads, hits, wind-lips, cornices, cliff drops,
ridges,
glades, corduroy, cruisers, rollers, powder runs or wet goo at
the bottom. It's not always wet at the bottom... apparently.
Some of the lower chairs have weather covers and other lower
lifts are gondolas. When the vertical covers this much ground
a little wet snow at the bottom isn't such a big deal. It is
common to ski awesome powder up high and sticky wet stuff into
the village.
When you're
beaten, head down to the valley and experience the Village
life. There's more bars than you can poke a stick at and the
variety of music & ambience is insane. We frequented
Garfinkels amongst others and had a wild time. And of course
the child minding was excellent.
Cypress Mountain
was the next resort on the bill. Zart left his snowboard in
the car and tried skiing for the first time. He did really
well, his first fall happened on his third run when a
snowboarder ran into him. HA HA. Cypress is a small resort
just North of Vancouver with some spectacular scenery and a
great variety of runs.
Then at dinner
time we visited Grouse Mountain. A ski resort above Vancouver
that is open till 10pm every night. Only accessible by cable
car. There's 2 super restaurants, brightly lit slopes with
wicked views, ice skating and sleigh rides. Next time we will
take our ski's.
And to finish it
all off we had a few days skiing in Salzburg Austria.
Kitzbuhel is
another awesome mountain. We stayed in Salzburg each day and
enjoyed the drive through the alps every morning to our
destination.
Then a day in Hong
Kong to buy a heap of not so cheap any more crap for the kids.
Apparently Bangkok is a cheaper place to shop these days.
If you're
interested in learning more about our powder tours please
email us at:-
kosciuszko@bigpond.com .
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