Not a Resort
I've always thought the word "resort" is weird. Some of my favorite ski areas are just places by the side of the road. No hotels. No village. No valet asking if you'd like your skis taken around back. Just a hill, a parking lot, and a chairlift.
I get it now, though. I think the word is more about memory than anything else.
One of my favorite places is the place I started skiing. And this wasn't some childhood origin story — I was 42. Just gave away my age there, but fine. It was a place in Wisconsin called Granite Peak, just west of Wausau. And here's the thing: it's not a resort. There's no flock of hotels attached to it. I didn't have to pay $800 a night to sleep in a very expensive building next to very groomed snow.
It was literally by the side of the road. You drove out of Wausau, and there it was.
Those are the places I like the most. They don't have the pomp and circumstance of a resort. The experience is the skiing. You show up, you put your boots on in the parking lot, you ski until your legs are done, and you drive home. Nobody's selling you a lodge membership on the way out.
Now don't get me wrong — I love Whistler. It's spectacular. But man, is it expensive. There's a version of a ski trip where the lift ticket is the cheapest line item, and I've never been sure that version is more fun than the one where the lift ticket is the whole budget.
So that's my point: sometimes it's not the most expensive resort that's your favorite. Sometimes it's the hill by the side of the road where you learned, at 42, that you should have started at 12.
That feeling — picking a line, committing to it, and living with the result — is exactly what our game Max Vert is about. If you want a taste of it between trips to whatever your Granite Peak is, it's on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/max-vert/id6792035970