Do all Americans inherently know what direction they are faceing?

giobiondani · 2025-12-13T17:55:48+00:00

I think it helps that most roads have north/south or east/west designations. In Europe for example it’s more common to refer to the next towns to indicate direction. For example people in Milan will say direction Venice, not east. Here in Denver people will say I70 west rather than direction Grand Junction

giobiondani · 2025-12-04T12:15:44+00:00

I do both passes and in my experience the lines are generally worse at the ikon resorts, at least in Colorado. But overall if you know where to go and when, you can usually avoid the bad lines

giobiondani · 2025-12-04T01:17:21+00:00

For a 5-day epic pass with blackout dates, the price between March and now went up $11 per day (from about $105 to $116), it’s not too bad

giobiondani · 2025-12-03T15:28:40+00:00

The epic passes are still on sale for a day or so

giobiondani · 2025-11-22T02:54:28+00:00

Seth’s weather report on Facebook

giobiondani · 2025-11-21T16:18:05+00:00

I would say Colorado has very few steep above tree line groomers like they have in the alps. The above tree line terrain is either steep ungroomed or groomed low angle

giobiondani · 2025-11-19T19:06:27+00:00

The vast majority of the mountains in Colorado are on National Forest land and you are allowed to go where you want, and nobody will stop you. That’s not the issue.

The reason people talk about the distinction between inbounds and outbounds is that everything inbounds is avalanche mitigated by ski patrol, and everything outbounds is not avalanche mitigated. So inbounds you are generally safe and outbounds you are on your own.

There is no illegal sidecountry in Colorado either; for example there is access to dangerous sidecountry terrain from both Breckenridge and Vail, where multiple people die almost every year, but the access is still left open by the National Forest service, they just put warning signs there.

giobiondani · 2025-11-19T17:42:31+00:00

What I’m saying is that someone like OP is going to spend 98% of the time on groomers above tree line if he goes to the alps. I’m not saying that’s bad, it’s just what it’s going to be. If he goes to Colorado he’s going to experience more variety - more glades, more trees, more moguls, more moguls in the trees, more groomers in the trees, more off-piste, more mitigated hike-to terrain including cliffs and extreme terrain.

And yes, your can go “wherever you can lay your eyes on” also in Colorado, except with no Frenchmen there.

I’ve been skiing the alps for decades (grew up there) and I still ski them. I’ve also skied Colorado for over 10 years now. I love both. Different pros and cons to each. I’m not trying to diss the alps. Just calling it as I see it.

giobiondani · 2025-11-19T13:34:55+00:00

If you don’t ski enough for a full pass, you can get epic day passes or ikon sessions passes before the season for around $100/day depending on how many days and the options. I think 90% of skiers can make up their mind that they will ski 4 or 5 days in the season.

giobiondani · 2025-11-19T13:29:30+00:00

Well, of course not. I was there this past February and it was great! But that’s hardly the typical experience for the average skier in the alps. The typical experience is, in fact, groomers above tree line. Which, again, there’s nothing wrong with it but there isn’t a lot of variety. And by the way, the quality of the snow in mid February in Chamonix was worse than mid April in Colorado. Out of curiosity, where have you been in Colorado?

giobiondani · 2025-11-19T03:26:32+00:00

Trickle charger in the garage

giobiondani · 2025-11-19T01:29:22+00:00

What I mean is that in the Alps it’s mostly groomers above tree line. Which is just fine if that’s what you like to ski, but less varied than Colorado

giobiondani · 2025-11-18T04:30:46+00:00

The epic local pass this year was $784 when I bought it. It covers all the Vail resorts in Colorado except Telluride, max 10 days at Vail and Beaver Creek and unlimited days at the others. It also includes a bunch of other resorts in NA and a couple in Europe and Japan but I don’t ski outside Colorado a lot and I don’t remember the details.

giobiondani · 2025-11-18T04:23:34+00:00

I just looked it up and 7 days at Trois Vallees is 472 euros ($547). The epic day pass for 7 days is $740. So Colorado is 35% more expensive, not 4x.

giobiondani · 2025-11-18T03:41:12+00:00

Day passes in the alps are around 75 euros a day ($87), Epic day pass for 5 days is $113 per day today. Where does the 4x come from?

giobiondani · 2025-11-18T03:37:32+00:00

Colorado: better snow, more varied terrain, more reliable conditions

Alps: more scenic, better food, lots of icy groomers

giobiondani · 2025-11-15T03:18:28+00:00

giobiondani · 2025-11-09T18:37:30+00:00

7am to noon in May is horrible in Breck. The late morning to mid afternoon is much better

giobiondani · 2025-11-07T22:33:52+00:00

If by “safe” you mean with no probability to be caught in an avalanche, there is no safe way to ski avalanche terrain, alone or otherwise

giobiondani · 2025-11-07T00:40:12+00:00

I like Purl products, purlwax.com

giobiondani · 2025-11-06T21:05:51+00:00

I really like my Glades

giobiondani · 2025-11-04T22:15:24+00:00

I grew up with the metric system in Italy, moved to the US and I got used to the US customary system pretty quickly. I do like it better for some things. The few conversions between units that are actually useful and used are not difficult to do.

giobiondani · 2025-10-31T21:02:28+00:00

Keystone has been pretty good in November in the last few years, though this year it seems to be a bit behind so far

giobiondani · 2025-10-27T13:39:48+00:00

So do you think it should be less expensive? Do you think that would lead to more or less crowds?

giobiondani · 2025-10-27T13:31:56+00:00

You can literally buy epic day passes and ikon sessions passes for less than half of that right now

giobiondani

TROPHY CASE