By Neil English
No matter what level of skier you are, you can always get better. Here's our choice of resorts for taking your skiing to the next level - no matter where you are now.
If you've never set eyes on a pair of ski-boots, New Hampshire's Cranmore Mountain
Resort in North Conway is an ideal place to start. It's particularly good for
families with young children. As a complete novice, you're bound to be a touch
nervous. But don't worry. Here at North Conway there's a relatively short vertical
drop and a lots of gentle runs. This means that thrill-seeking, speed merchants
tend to stay away, so there's plenty of space to fall over if you need to! The
ski school here has earned its
reputation too. If you've got junior skiers in tow, at 4pm when the main lifts
shut and your muscles have turned to mousse, the kids can head for the supervised
Adventure Centre where one lift remains open for skiing. There's also ice-skating,
indoor climbing and even lift-served snow-tubing to help zap the little blighters'
energy.
Close by and with the mesmerising backdrop of the White
Mountains, the resort of Loon Mountain is New
Hampshire's largest and it's perfect for low intermediates who need to build
up confidence on green runs and get the hang of basic parallel turns. Loon offers
ample diversity of terrain on its 275 acres of skiable slopes to take beginners
to the next level. Young and old alike will progress swiftly with Loon's highly
rated Adaptive Programme run by the Snowsports School. Once confidence is surging
from brain to foot, you'll be grateful for the unusually long runs, provided
by the impressive 2,100 feet of vertical drop, where you can transform your
hard-won technique into a more rewarding, carving instinct.
Once you've grown up, head to the west
coast of the US and Canada
- where huge mountains make most of the eastern ranges look like ant hills (despite
the fact they looked death defying when you started out!) Winter
Park in Colorado
is the perfect location to take your skiing to Intermediate level, particularly
if you enrol in Winter Park's excellent ski school. And the thrills you can
get on long, high speed cruising runs, carving short and long turns as you see
fit, will provide plenty of adrenalin. Winter Park boasts an impressive playground
with more than 3,000 skiable acres of which most will challenge the Intermediate
skier. If you can start to master the 3,000 feet of vertical drop, and some
of all five interlinked sectors, experimenting with the different speeds and
gradients, you'll be on your way to Advanced level skiing - something just 10%
of skiers manage.
Getting off the Intermediate plateau is one of the hardest things you can do.
90% of skiers never progress further. (And that's perfectly OK - 90% of the
world's lift-served ski slopes are designed for Intermediates.) If you want
to go the extra 10%, head for awe inspiring scenery and long but steep cruising
runs at Heavenly. This
huge ski area, straddling California
and Nevada, affords stunning views from its upper elevations, of Lake
Tahoe, Nevada and the desert. On the Californian side, head for the long
steep cruisers on the Ridge Run and keep heading over to the steeper lines.
When confidence is highest, head back to the Californian side to ride your luck
in the steeper tree runs which are often laden with loose powder. The resort's
ski school is one of the very best, so spending your holiday money on some one-on-one
tuition here is a good investment. Kirkwood just across the mountain from Heavenly
also has great terrain for those that are experienced and want to improve. Buy
a Lake Tahoe Interchangeable ski pass and you can ski a total of seven different
resorts around Lake Tahoe - Kirkwood among them.
Conquer those steeper runs at Heavenly and you're en route to what many refer
to as the ultimate ski resort - Whistler.
This epic, Canadian winter sports destination, set high in the dramatic coastal
mountains, north of Vancouver, will host the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. For
good reason. It certainly has terrain to challenge the world's best skiers.
Treat it with respect and it might help you to the heady heights of Expert skiing.
Whistler, like Heavenly, has excellent facilities for all - so don't think it's
not for you if you're not a complete ski-hound, but if you're serious about
improving, it has the infrastructure, surroundings and terrain to help you progress
to the next level. Whistler enjoys one of the world's best helicopter skiing
operations and it takes powder-loving enthusiasts up to stunning backcountry
terrain amidst the glaciers of Blackcomb Mountain. And you don't have to be
an expert in powder to sign up. So long as you're fit enough to handle variable
snow conditions and at least advanced on-piste, do a few specialist off-piste
tuition days here. You may just find a whole new ski-world in powder snow -
and have a great adventure along the way. Here's hoping.
If hitting the slopes in North America seems like the
perfect winter holiday for you, check out the latest VHOT
ski deals.
Neil English is a freelance travel journalist who specialises in skiing. He regularly writes for the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday.