Eldora ski resort near Boulder. Its a small, no frills place but the price is right and its easy to get to. You can usually park near the lifts so not much walking. Roads are decent and you can usually zip in and out pretty quickly. It really sucks spending hours at a time waiting on I-70 to get in and out of the big name resorts. I-70 west of the Eisenhower tunnel turns into a big parking lot on the weekends during ski season. Anymore though, wherever we go, we usually go out during the week to avoid the higher traffic.

Red Lodge just about 50 miles from Cody WY, and 90 miles from Billings MT.

I still dig A-basin. It's amidst all the others so traffic can be nasty going through the tunnel depending on if the pass is closed, but it's nice... has some killer runs... and is independently owned. I'm heading to Steamboat for the weekend. Never been. My friends that are there now are loving it, and they are major powder snobs. I'll let you know what I think.

Just leave fairly early on the weekends and ski though lunch to be done before the crowd to head back and it is no big deal.

Big fan of A-Basin as well. Much of the terrain there is stuff you ride a few lifts for at other ski areas. The lack of parking since the opening of the backside has been pretty annoying though but not a problem if you get there early enough.

Been awhile, but Beaver Creek - while it is on the same beaten path as all the other main colorado resorts, it had a very off the path feel to it.

I've never seen too many skiers in 29 Palms.

Beaver Creek is great. It is just far enough from Denver and expensive enough to stay in the area to keep crowds down but not much of a drive from Dillon/Silverthorn. More of a premium resort vibe than an off the path.

My friends have told me Montana is great because there's nobody there.

That depends where you go.

When I was into skiing, I really liked Bridger Bowl.

http://bridgerbowl.com/

I'm a big fan of the weekday trips on most any resorts(except for certain holidays of course) Crowds tend to be smallish and you can get as many runs as you want. On a fresh single day trip(because your legs are done after so much), I've cleared 25-30 runs and probably between 35-50K vertical feet. If you can swing the weekday don't worry about the crowd and pick a place you like. Personally I'd rather pick a great mountain on a weekday than a marginal one on a weekend.

In the 80's silver creek was a good place to bring a chick back to the hot tub.

http://www.bozemannet.com/ski_resorts/

All three have been mentioned.

Stay in Bozeman and hit all three.

Thank you all for your input.


PhilFree:arrow:

Mt. Rose in Tahoe is a great little place. In fact, I prefer it to the bigger, better known ski areas in Tahoe.