Ski Areas

'There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.' That saying applies to skiing and snowboarding as well as time-share condo seminars. Peter Frick-Wright discovered as much in his attempt to reduce his carbon footprint (snowprint?) by snowboarding in the backcountry. Peter rode a train to 'see whether I can ride the rails to a near-zero-emissions vacation'. Unfortunately, Peter wasn't able to avoid car trips to the trailhead and he got a crash-course in backcountry ski safety too.

Get your boot bags together, go bring your ski friends too, ‘cause its getting nearer, it soon will be with you. Yes, the Denver to Winter Park ski train is returning on December 27, 2009. Now called the Rio Grande Scenic Ski Train, the train departs from Union Station in Denver at 7am, arrives at Winter Park at 9:15am. The return trip departs Winter Park at 4:15pm and arrives at Denver at 6:30pm. The ski train will run through March 28, 2010 with a weekend schedule in January, adding Thursday and Friday service in February and March.

When you go skiing how do you get to the mountains? If you can take a bus or train to the mountain, that's great! Unfortunately, for many of us there simply isn't any public transit to the closest ski resort. Speaking for myself, every time I go skiing I drive to the local ski area. Since driving is my only practical option - I carpool to the mountain.