Ski, Golf, Hike on Same Day
Spring Allows Several Favorite Things at Once and at Reduced Prices
Apr 3, 2007
Aah, spring. This is the season when you can combine some of your favorite adventure travel experinces on the same day. Even better, in this off-season, rates are much lower than in winter (for skiing) or summer (for golf).
Several ski resorts have extended their hours of operation, so you can ski longer each day, almost until dinnertime.
Okemo in Vermont and Crested Butte in Colorado keep some lifts running until 5 p.m. or 5:30 p.m. That means you can ski almost until dinnertime. At Okemo in spring, you can ski part of the day and take in 18 holes at the Okemo Valley Golf Club in the same day. What a day -- ski or snowboard in the morning, golf at lunch, and get back on the mountain on skis or snowbard on in the afternoon.
Snowbird has the longest ski season in Utah, and has a $249 Spring Pass valid from April 1 through closing date in mid-May. There's also a Spring Ski Package is valid throughout April which includes a minimum of three days of skiing and three nights of lodging for rates starting at $99 per person, per day, based on double occupancy.
The mountains at Whistler in British Columbia, Canada, top out at just about a mile high, so spring arrives in the valley long before it reaches the peaks. Even so, the four championship golf courses are enough to lure even the most diehard downhill skier or snowbarder away from the slopes onto the links.
And we're not talking about website links, are we? And there's still enough snow for heli-skiing or heli-snowboarding on Whistler's famous glaciers.
Or, head to Idaho and the new Tamarack Resort, which has lots of downhill slopes and a Robert Trent Jones Jr. championship golf course.
There are more than 25 golf courses within an hour drive of South Lake Tahoe, and nearly as many ski areas. Okay, not nearly as many -- Heavenly and Sierra at the south end, Squaw Valley, Alpine Meadows and Northstar at the north end, and Kirkwood on the other side of the Donner Pass are the major areas.
Anyway, some of the Lake Tahoe area golf courses are open year round, even if the downhill destinations are not. And you can cap off the day with a casino experience at South Lake, or a dinner cruise on the lake.
Of course, any and all of these resorts also have hiking and mountain biking trails, and the ones at lower elevations, close to town are often melted down by spring, so you can have the happy decision whether to ski or snowboard, golf or hike or bike, even horseback riding, on the same day.
Now that's an adventure travel experience!
