Living too far south to get much snow and working too long to get out often, I’m an “intermittent intermittent” with no hope of improvement. The biggest challenge is finding a destination that is hard enough to be interesting but easy enough to ski when traveling solo. Since ranking the difficulty level of a race varies from mountain to mountain, too often I find that it doesn’t work for me. Especially the difference between skiing at Heavenly Valley and Sun Valley or Big Sky at Lake Tahoe was striking. In the northwestern US, where the slopes in between resembled the Matterhorn, I had to resort to Plan B: count bison in Yellowstone. After those near misses, I developed a personal checklist for finding the best destinations for intermediate skiing:
- Number and type of slopes designated as Intermediate
- Snow quality and typical conditions
- Apres-ski activity/nearby restaurants and accommodations
- Affordability/Attractive prices
- Convenient access to airports
- friendly environment
- Interesting location/different purpose feasible
- Ski Instruction Availability/Schedule
- Weather/temperature in the mountains
- Proximity to a Plan B/alternative tourism
Preferring the road less travelled, I tried an active volcano, New Zealand’s Ruapehu/Whakapapa. Living north of the equator, I was especially excited about skiing this summer. Plus, with the mild North Island climate, I was able to go rafting one day and ski this active volcano the next. On subsequent trips to other slopes, sporting a sweater with a Kiwi on skis was a huge icebreaker.
To Hafjel, Norway, which had all the right advantages even traveling alone. The snow was fantastic even though it was 50 degrees Fahrenheit at the base. The ski instruction was excellent and the classes were friendly. The price was right and a local bus shuttled skiers throughout the day from Lillehammer. Better yet, sending postcards home from that Olympic venue gave my skiing ability an undeserved boost that I was able to dine out for the rest of the year. If my luggage had arrived when I arrived it would have been perfect.
Still struggling at times to keep up with the best skiers, I finally hit the dirt. I found the perfect “10” skiing in Andorra. I was immediately excited to see a new country, albeit quite a small one, based in the Pyrenees. The mix of four languages, Spanish, Catalan, French and English, made it feel exotic but still easy to handle. Ski lessons were very helpful with a small group of well matched intermediates. It was a very pleasant atmosphere with part of the class practicing English and the rest practicing Spanish. After lunch, a Dutch classmate and I spent the afternoon working on perfecting our parallel turns.
Every day the sun was bright. Even at lower elevations, there was no ice. Local towns provided multiple après-ski and dinner options at a good price. Lastly, access was easy by flying into Barcelona. February weather in northeastern Spain was mild, not unlike California. That made it an ideal way to combine an active outdoor trip with a cultural one to see Gaudi’s impressive architecture.
If I can’t get a perfect “10”, I opt to find a destination off the beaten path. Whatever the ski conditions, I can always enjoy the adventure and have the pictures to prove it.