If you like to ski park, then summit county is always a good choice for someone first moving out west. there's a fuckload of seasonal rentals and tons of couches, basements, and garages with bunkbeds in them. most importantly they have one of the cheapest passes out there, if you buy it at the right time you'll spend 400-600 depending on how many mountains you want...if you skip out on vail and the beav then you get a good deal and can still ski breck, keystone, and abasin as much as you want. on top of all that it's stupidly easy to get a job with vail resorts since they own everything (free pass too), but if you want to not work at the mountain, there are plenty of potential jobs all over the place. you have keystone, frisco, dillion/dv, breck, and silvy all with places to find work. if you're committed and don't present yourself like a dirty ski bum, you will find a job.
not sure if you're familiar but breck and key always have an awesome park setup pretty much from the day they open in early november. keystone even has a park lift, breck has one too but it's not always open.
so if park is your thing, go to summit. easy. IF YOU EXPECT TO SKI POWDER, don't go to summit. it doesn't dump that much and when it does, there isn't that much terrain to reallllly have fun on. you are in summit county though which is always a jumping off point for trips outwards further west. try to make friends with kids with sleds. there is plenty of powder in CO, just not in summit county. when you live in an expensive ski town you tend to not really want to leave outside the comfort zone of your own season pass considering everything is always expensive as fuck.
if you want to shred powder all the time, jackson hole is definitely the place. be warned though, there isn't much of a park, it's expensive, and when it doesn't snow it sucks. a good place to have both park and powder is definitely utah. you've got pow mow, alta, deer valley, etc in addition to PCMR which always has a dope park. much more expensive and exclusive though. PC is a pretty expensive place to live, although there are always some decent places to stay if you look hard enough. don't forget about tahoe either. never adventured out there so I can't really give you my input.
just my .02. made plenty of mistakes out there. plan ahead and save money. ALWAYS have money stashed away somewhere. the second you're totally broke and living paycheck to paycheck is the second you're fucked, almost always. things happen and you always need money in the bank for an oh shit fund.
