Heavenly

depends what you're going to be wanting to ski. Heavenly's terrain is alright, but its a bitch in a half getting anywhere without traversing around for 30 mins. They have okay park setups, but the flow can get a little wack due to snowboard influenced jibs, and tight, closed in layouts. They only have one area thats really legit steep, which is mott and killy canyons.. but they arent always open, and are fairly short, with bad snow due to low elev. pow days there are cool, but pow days ANYWHERE are cool.

They do have some amazing gladed tree skiing in skiways, but it's not very wind protected in there at all. The trees, especially towards the top, look pretty haggard, and that is indicative of the constant windy conditions.

Plus, you're paying out the ass for a ticket there. 89 bucks for a ticket? shit.. might as well go to squaw, where they have a wayy sick park, and IMO the best terrain in tahoe (closely contested by kwood and alpine, of course)

Sorry if i'm ripping on heavenly a bit, its still a pretty cool place.. and its HUGE.. but after all the shit that they've given me after working for them (52 bucks tickets as a DISCOUNT? get real), and my friend not being able to use his park skis there while instructing because "they arent normal skis" has kinda pissed me off lol.

Well thanks for the info man. +K.

Only reason I'd be going there is cause my girl might be able to score a condo right on the resort. She's got a ton of free flyer miles and I need to get the fuck out of AK for a few days and away from work.

I'll let you guys know, but if I'm down there, anyone wanna show me around the mountain so I can score some pow (hopefully) or sesh some features.

if you're staying there, then fuck it.. thats where you're gonna want to be anyway. just hit up NS when you're down here and i'm sure a few of us steezers are gonna be down to show you the way.

It'd be cool to have someone show you around, but it really isn't necessary. I was just there for a 7 days and I knew exactly where I was going by the 2nd day. It looks big on a map but once you're there it's definitely manageable. If you get a chance, I'd definitely go to squaw for a day or two.

or working there you must not have gotten the opportunity to ACTUALLY ski the resort. being on the heavenly patrol, i actually know that there is great skiing and tones of it.

as far as the 52 $ tickets there actually 45 and the twin tip thing is BS 100% and if someone actually told your buddy that he should have questioned it a little more and taken that to the management because i ride hellbents and blends for work 40hrs a week.

Ya heavenly doesnt have to best terrain in the basin but they do have a good resort and some great turns all over the mountain.
but i guess when your a poodle you dont actually get to ski.

yo, i did state there is legit skiing, i just dont see their daypass being worth it in comparison to other resorts.

and yes, that is exactly what somebody told my friend. they said they did not want him riding his gotamas (which he uses for his park skis, guess he likes em big..) while instructing. He ended up just snagging a pair of old demos from the big sale Heavenly Sports threw early season just to avoid the crap he was getting from whoever. Unless he's lying, or completely blowing something out of the water, that's what I have come to understand.

(warning: semi-rant) as far as 52% being the discount, yeah, that is bad when you work for SSV (which i'd hope you know is vail resorts + Heavenly's retail stores), when the Booth Creek resorts allow us to shred for 15 any day, and kirkwood gives us free, unlimited passes. and even if you hold a shop card, cant ski even weekdays unless you work 25+ hours a week..  which half of all the stores only are having hours cut to shit.. sorry if i'm partially sour because of that, but trust me, its not so rad. (end semi-rant)

truth be told, i'd like to ride the mountain more, and get to know its most hidden shit a bit better, (hence the grave annoyances) but beside all that, I think i know the mountain, and the buisness well enough by now to be able to judge it, and its whole vibe. All I'm saying is, they really could do better IMO.

on the bright side, you can pay off the season pass in all of 4 days skied, and then use that pass to get what.. 5 free days at the colorado resorts? I forget the whole dealio there..

Well thanks for all the info guys. That helps out quite a bit.

I'm pretty much just going to ski there I think because I really don't want to figure out renting a car or dealing with transportation issues between other mountains and the condo that I'll probably be at. Plus I will be there for about 4 days or so, it's not really that long to scope out too many mountains.

However, I do forget that it's not Alaska and shit is much closer to each other, so it might be possible to check some other shit out.

Sean, that's totally bunk that they only give you 52% off. When I worked at Wateville Valley in NH we had FREE SEASON passes. We also got like 50% off of all the food and some other good deals too.  The employees there must be gettin jacked.

I'll totally let NS know when I plan to be down there, as I'd love to ski with some people that are better and on a different level then me (no parks in AK).  I'll be the creepy older looking woodsy-dude with JJs and a Royal blue Saga suit...haha.

heavenly is a good mt.  parking is close to the lifts, lots of terrain, great woods skiing, tons of sidecountry.  the park is ok, it seems from an outsiders perspective that they do not get the most support from management.  no big cliffs to huck but aside from that its a good mountain.  even on the busiest days you can find empty lifts if you know where to look.  have fun