Winter Park Sneeuwverwachting

Just back from a week in Winter Park, after skiing there once before (in 2005). In short, we had forgotten just how incredible the ski area is! Fantastic snow conditions (the natives cannot begin to understand the concept of "ice" and refer to hard packed snow as such), no lift queues of more than 5 minutes - even on a UK half-term week/US bank holiday weekend (in fact, no queues at all, midweek) and a largely deserted ski area with challenging bump runs (endless, thigh burners, with the biggest moguls imaginable), incredible skiing in the trees (ranging from steady blues to ferocious - 50 degrees plus - blacks), 50 degree couloirs and chutes plus vertical open faces that you have to hike to. Oh, and lots of great cruising on immaculately groomed pistes in between! Think I'm raving about it? Well, you'd be right! If you haven't been yet, and like a ski challenge, you can't go wrong with a trip to WP! I've skied several times at numerous resorts in Colorado, Utah, California, Vermont, Wyoming and Canada - and Winter Park is most definitely up there with the best of them! Although it's a quiet village, in downtown Winter Park there's a wide choice of cheap, good quality restaurants, which suited us fine as we were too exhausted to shuffle around the streets after 9.30 pm... zzzzzzzz.