Taos, New Mexico

Best For: Art-loving skiers and boarders with a taste for steep runs and green chilies 

Executive summary by darmansjah

In the world of classic ski towns, Taos is a unique gem. Originally an ancient, high-desert pueblo at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico, the city was populated in the early 20th century by artists and writers who were attracted to the Native American and Hispanic culture, stunning natural surroundings, and the region’s 300 annual days of crystalline sunshine. In 1955, a German immigrant named Ernie Blake founded Taos Ski Valley 18 miles outside of town in a narrow valley engulfed by precipitous peaks. Today, the Swiss-style chalets at the area’s base exude an old-time European character while the town itself feels like a funky Southwestern artist’s colony.

Still run by the Blake family, the mountain offers some of the finest steep skiing and boarding in the U.S., with powder that rivals Utah’s for lightness. You can ski double diamonds top to bottom here. The most challenging terrain—and best powder runs—come on the hike-access West Basin and Highline ridges and the area’s highpoint, 12,481-foot Kachina Peak (check in with ski patrol before attempting). Taos operates one of the country’s most highly regarded ski schools—for beginners and the already skilled—which is good because the terrain demands it. There are no high-speed lifts here, which somehow suits the mountain’s almost mystical, apart-from-the-world vibe.

Nightlife in the bohemian town of 5,716 is limited, but there are plenty of art galleries, coffee shops, and inexpensive restaurants serving delicious, green-chili-smothered New Mexican food in town.

Ask a Local 

Taos ski patroller and avalanche forecaster Rey Deveaux has been skiing at Taos for over 50 years. He also owns and manages the Gearing Up bicycle shop in town. Here are his recommendations.

Best Digs

Budget: The cheapest, funkiest place to stay is the Abominable Snowmansion.

Swank: El Monte Sagrado is a four-star hotel that is eco friendly—it recycles its grey and black water and produces a some of its own electricity from photovoltaics and a geothermal system.

Best Eats

Cheap: Try Ranchos Plaza Grill for authentic northern New Mexican food. It’s moderately priced and next to the historic San Francisco de Assisi Mission Church. The cheapest good spot is Taos Diner 1, at the north end of Taos.

Gourmet: Sabroso Restaurant & Bar in Arroyo Seco has great food, service, and atmosphere.

Best After-Ski Party Spot

Doc Martin's at the Historic Taos Inn has nightly entertainment, an outdoor seating area, and the best mix of visitors and local flavor. Best place to "mix it up" and dance is at the Martini Tree Bar at Taos Ski Valley.

Best Rest-Day Activity

Take a drive and visit the sacred Taos Pueblo, home of the Taos Pueblo Indians, an ancient tribe still mostly living the traditional ways. Then go out to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, the one of the highest bridges in the U.S., with beautiful views and spectacular geology.

Taos’s Classic Ski Run

The classic ski run at Taos Ski Valley for experts willing to climb ten minutes is Stauffenberg, named after the Nazi army officer who plotted to assassinate Hitler. It’s a classic steep chute with hundred-mile views! For something mellower, try Honeysuckle, a long groomer that’s sunny and scenic.

Stowe, Vermont

Best For: Patrician eastern U.S. skiers with a taste for fine dining 

Executive summary by darmansjah

The archetypal New England ski village, Stowe is an impossibly quaint town of clapboard houses and steepled churches set in wooded hills at the foot of Vermont’s Green Mountains. Main Street and Mountain Road are alive with boutiques and eateries. The larger community harbors more three- and four-star restaurants than any ski town in the Northeast. Partiers take note: Luxury lodging abounds, late-night revelry does not. You come to Stowe to live in a postcard, not a Harold and Kumar movie.

The skiing takes place a 15-minute drive up the road at Stowe Mountain Resort, where high-speed quads and gondolas whisk you up two separate mountains. Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in Vermont, has plenty to offer adventurous skiers and snowboarders, including the famed “front four”—four double-black diamond runs that are among the most challenging in the East. Spruce Peak, newly connected by a short gondola ride to Mansfield, is the place for beginners, with its ski school and gently arcing blue and green runs. Side- and backcountry skiing from the area is some of the best in the East, including Mount Mansfield’s original run, the Bruce Trail, a narrow, twisting, 2,400-foot drop cut by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the early 1930s.

Ask a Local 

Sam von Trapp, from the family made famous by The Sound of Music, is a ski instructor and helps to manage the Trapp Family Lodge, a world-class Nordic lodge and the first commercial cross-country ski resort in the United States. Here are his recommendations.

Best Digs

Budget: Town and Country Resort at Stowe offers great bang for the buck.

Swank: Stowe Mountain Lodge is ski-in, ski-out and five stars.

Best Eats

Cheap: Pie in the Sky Pizza

Gourmet: The Blue Moon Cafe, right in the center of town

Best After-Ski Party Spot

The Mattherhorn bar is a Stowe institution.

Best Rest-Day Activity

The Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum is right in the center of town and a great opportunity to indulge in ski culture while resting the legs.

Stowe’s Classic Ski Run

There are tons of great lines off-piste, but try the Goat. It’s narrow, steep, and challenging.

Steamboat Springs, Colorado

best For: Families hoping to groom the next Bode Miller

Executive summary by darmansjah

Though it hosts one of Colorado’s largest and most well-known ski resorts, the town of Steamboat Springs, population 12,088, has a character that is unique in the state. Northern Colorado is ranching country, and Steamboat is still an authentic, working cowboy town that has evolved into one of the most important ski towns in America. You won’t find cutesy false-front stores here, but you will find the city-owned Howelsen Hill, the longest continuously operating ski area in Colorado, where the town’s Winter Sports Club practices on seven wooden ski jumps contoured out of the mountain. There’s also a Winter Carnival every February, when truckloads of snow are dumped on the town’s broad main street for ski-joring competitions and a high school band that comes through on skis.

Three miles away, rising high above the Yampa River Valley, is the Steamboat Ski Resort, spreading white ribbons across a forested massif of six rounded peaks. Though offering less puckering expert terrain than some areas in the state, what Steamboat does deliver is its signature light powder, world-class tree skiing, and snowboarding through endless groves of aspen. The ski school is considered one of the best in the country, and Steamboat claims to have produced 79 Olympic skiers and snowboarders, more than any town in America.

Ask a Local

Ski-racing legend Billy Kidd, Steamboat’s longtime director of skiing, was the first American ski racer to medal at the Olympics, netting a silver medal in 1964. (Teammate Jimmie Heuga won a bronze in the same race.) He’s 68 but claims he skis like a 67-year-old. Here are his recommendations.

Best Digs

Budget: The Rabbit Ears motel is right downtown and directly across the street from hot springs.

Swank: The Sheraton is literally about a hundred feet from the bottom of the gondolas.

Best Eats

Cheap: Slopeside Grill at the bottom of the mountain is good for burgers and beer or pizza.

Gourmet: Harwigs L'Apogeé in town has a great wine list.

Best After-Ski Party Spot

Tugboat is the old locals place where the ski patrol goes to hang out after the end of the day. There’s live music.

Best Rest-Day Activity

Almost no other ski area in America has hot springs right near the bottom of the mountain. The hot spring in town is a pool with waterslides and is good for kids. Strawberry Park is a natural hot springs five miles outside of town, with rustic log cabins for rent.

Steamboat’s Classic Ski Run

“When we get powder, my favorite area to go to is the Shadows, which is up on top in the trees, so when you start down you’re above tree line, then you go into pine trees, then into aspen trees,” says Kidd. “Beginners and intermediates don’t go there, so it really holds the powder. Also, it faces west, so if you ski it the afternoon you get that great light the photographers love.”