Originally Posted by
onlynik
I’ve never heard a bad word about Fernie. Couple Albertans I know rave about the place - I’ve never been however.
We found Whistler reasonably priced, we stayed at Creekside. The ski schools were very good at whistler with GPS tracking so you could review where the kids were during the day. The instructors our kids had were Scottish or Aussies.
Northern Italy is good too. There’s direct (not OW) flights to Milan from EDI.
However
Though I prefer to drive to the Alps these days. It’s just easier and cheaper given we take our own skis with us. Yes it takes longer, but I feel we’ve got more options to get home and more importantly we’re not going to lose our luggage.
The inconsistency of the flights to Calgary has put us off going further East into the Rockies, but I hear Fernie is great too. I love Whistler as a resort, but again I’ve skied it every month of the winter and the conditions on mountain can be highly variable, particularly later in the season. I love it, but I’ve had some “distinctly Scottish” skiing experiences there like skiing on sheet ice and in freezing fog. It is too low and too close to the coast to be my go to destination, although this is offset by the convenience of an easy drive from YVR.
Of course this is the BA forum so I wasn’t thinking about non-OW options, but even then the EasyJet and Jet2 options from EDI to Venice are quite inconvenient as they can get in too late for transfers etc. Last time we skied the Dolomites we flew BA via Gatwick and spent the night in Venice as the EasyJet option just didn’t work. Of course, we can’t even do that now as BA don’t fly to Gatwick anymore from EDI.
in answer to the others respondees, yeah the Epic pass is the way to go for Vail resorts owned mountains and the Ikon pass works most other places including Aspen. The trick with skiing in North America is not to go for a week - go for 8 days or more. You’re not constrained by the insistence that there is a changeover day so get your money’s worth and ski for a bit longer.