North Anerica at Easter?

[RosieLig]

Thinking of using up some airmiles and going skiing at Easter next year. It would be from the 29th march with a possible plan to stop off at a city on the way home.

We are intermediate skiers and don't need child are although myself and the children (they will be 12, 10 and 8) would like lessons

Any thoughts/experiences would be great. Thanks.

[dottygamekeeper]

We did this at Easter couple of years ago - flew into LA, had a couple of days there with friends who live there, then drove up to Mammoth, stayed in a self catering condo right next to the slopes, ski in ski out (with hot tub and pool, which you skied past to get to the locker room).

Unusually for Mammoth it was not, by their standards, a great snow year, but it dumped while we were there, so we were skiing knee deep powder on piste. Great resort, not vast by European standards but plenty of skiing for us, only thing I hated were the chairlifts without bars (or the ones with bars, but the Americans don't use them!). Food mixed, some great, some v typical American, but lots of choice of places to eat. Free ski bus within the resort, we were staying at one end, Eagle Lodge, but we had a car anyway. I bought lift passes and ordered skis etc through a company here and got a good discount I seem to remember.

Our children were 15 and 13 at the time, so a bit older than yours, but loved the private lesson they had with an instructor. We had two weeks in total, so after 5 days at Mammoth drove down to Death Valley for a couple of days in the desert, before heading back to LA to fly home. It was one of our best family holidays ever! Obviously if you go west coast USA there is more jet lag to factor in.

[SilasGreenback]

We always ski in Canada at Big White - fly into Calgary or Vancouver and then an internal flight to Kelowna. My kids are similar ages to what yours will be and they love it there - the ski school is brilliant, kids always have a fab time and the adult lessons are good too.

It's all ski in/ski out, good choice of restaurants plus lots of evening activities, we've never had bad snow and they don't have lift lines. A week or so there plus time in Vancouver would make a lovely Easter break.

[Peetle]

Breckenridge is great - a proper "town", rather than a purpose built resort. Skiing for all standards and high enough to still be sure of snow at Easter. You could probably spend a couple of days in Chicago on the way back.

I've skiied in the US and Europe and I find while it's more expensive to get to the US it's often much cheaper over there than in Europe for beer, food, shopping (esp the outlet village Silverthorne, near Breckenridge). The accommodation is usually larger and nicer too. The downside is the jetlag which can make the first couple of days a bit of a challenge.

[Nevercan]

We loved Breckenridge too!

[MissMilbanke]

Tahoe is fabulous - but I don't think they have had much snow yet. It's been a very dry winter in California whilst other parts of the USA have had loads of snow and freezing conditons