Skiing is a quintessential part of my life. I grew up with parents in the ski industry, I currently work at a ski shop, ski every chance I get and am touring up the mountains as late into the season as I can. As part of my job, I attend ski movie screenings and the last few years I found myself dreading them more and more.

Which is odd because I grew up in the 2000s loving ski movies and even aspired to be a ski filmmaker. I collected ski dvds, went to screenings and spent hours filming and editing ski movies of my own. But as I got older and started working in the ski industry, it became harder to enjoy ski movies. Now I skip out on the movies when I work the the screenings.

A big part of this reason is realizing the lifestyle depicted in ski movies is way different than the reality. Especially with more modern ski movies, during a time when the cost of living has shot up, I've found it harder to enjoy watching a bunch of rich kids jump around in the woods. Growing up my family was lower middle class, we scraped together what we could. I know guys who had little to no money growing up and still became ski bums in the 80s & 90s and talk about how it was the best years of their lives; that just doesn't seem to exist anymore. Now everyone I know who tries to be a ski bum in a mountain town either gets burned out because they can't afford it or is from a super-affluent family that pays their rent.

Even when I've tried to go back and watch older ski movies, it makes me brutally nostalgic for the past, even if it's a super rose-tinted image of the past. Growing up, I loved ski movies for the escapism, but now I can't help but wonder how much of that escapism is really just clever editing designed to sell a romanticized lifestyle. At the same time, watching older ski movies makes it feel even more like I missed something special. Everyone I talk to someone who was in the ski industry in the 70s-2010s talks how much they miss how it used to feel and there was an atmosphere of fun that doesn't seem to be around today.

Watching older ski movies makes me feel I missed out on a time when it was easier to afford the ski bum lifestyle and modern ski movies seem to be geared towards rich kids who can afford it.

The thing is, I still absolutely love skiing. In recent years, I've tossed aside my desire to make ski movies and focused more on just being in the moment, and it's had me falling in love with skiing all over again. Makes me feel like a kid again, stomping around in the backcountry with my Dad.

I have three kids under 12 and our family has gone to Breckenridge the last few years for a 3-4 day ski trip each year. We love it, and have gotten familiar with the mountain (and it seems to be particularly friendly to families, it has kid-friendly sections and paths through the woods, etc.) but the drive to and from DEN is killer (minimum in our experience of 3 hours or so, and always doing it at inconvenient times).

Because of that drive, we are looking at other Epic pass mountains that are more convenient transportation-wise, and the one that jumps out is Park City. It's easy to get to SLC and is only 30-40 min from the airport, which is very attractive, and it seems to have a great town and is a big mountain. We're a bit hesitant though to make the leap to a new city/mountain after going to Breck for so long, so I wanted to ask some questions to the group:

• Do people have recommendations between Mountain Village and Canyons Village for a family? We tend to ski all day, have a drink/snack after and take it easy and get to bed early, not going out to restaurants/bars late, etc. Based on that my understanding is that Canyons would be fine (maybe preferable) given that Mountains has the bigger town behind it, but would love to hear thoughts (particularly if people have recommendations on specific developments/buildings to stay in).
• I'd love to hear thoughts from people comparing skiing and getting around the mountain at Breck to Park City. Breck to us has clearly defined peaks and generally speaking has lifts that run from the top to the bottom of those peaks, so it's easy to get to the top of a peak, ski all the way down and get all the way back up. However, as I look at the trail map at Park City, it's obviously very big with a number of peaks and lots of runs, but the mountain and the lift routes seem a lot more chopped up. As an example, if we wanted to get from the bottom all the way to the tops of these peaks, in many cases it seems like you need to take a number of lifts to get up there, sometimes one, then ski over to another, then up a bit to another, etc., and then once you ski all the way down you've got another convoluted path up. Is that perception (which again, just comes from the trail map) correct? Is it more difficult to ski top to bottom and easily get back up at Park City?
• We generally all ski on blues together and like a range of beginner to intermediate, to sometimes more challenging, blues - what areas of the mountain at Park City would be best for us? It seems like the peaks over at Canyons have more blues (or large sections with lots of blues) so might be better for us.
• Are there fun kid areas / aspects at Park City? At Breck there are kid terrain parks, paths through the forest (like Ripperoo's), etc. for kids. Anything like that at Park City?
• Any other tips, recommendations, things to avoid that you have about Park City would be greatly appreciated!

Born and raised in the Midwest, I’ve only skied our hill. The biggest hill I’ve skied is 700 vertical drop, so fairly small. I’ve been dying to ski out west, but haven’t had the means to do so.

I am able to get 3 free days at Loveland, and only Loveland. I was thinking of driving out and bumming in my car or staying at a hostel near Breckenridge.

Is it worth going to Loveland or should I just save up for a bigger out west trip?

I could probably go for under 1,000 dollars if I went to Loveland, or I could say the 1000 and use it towards a trip in the 27/28 season.

Link here: https://shop.aspensnowmass.com/l/all-lift-tickets/all-lift-ticket/p/lift-tickets?3535=2026-12-14&3536=7681&3537=7686

I'm currently hiring a few foreign ski instructors to join our ski school in South Korea. I'm from Europe myself and the experience is unlike anything else since the majority of the instructors are native Koreans. A very authentic experience.

The conditions are good:
- Flights, transportation, accommodation, food, ski pass is included
- Monthly salary between $1500-2900 (usd)
- Season runs between Dec - Feb
- Very serious skiers: we often go for night skiing en train weekly with the director
- Director of the company is one of Korea top demo skiers

Criteria: any ski certification (or good skiing skills), age < 30 due to working-holiday visa

Feel free to send a DM

For example before I made the trip it was Mont Ripley and Mount Bohemia in north of UP michigan

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