Ski: Midwest's hills are alive
You don't have to move mountains to find a great ski experience close to home
The Midwest may not have any ski runs with 3,000-foot vertical descents, like they have out West. And nearby resorts don’t draw the celebrities like Aspen, Vail and Telluride do.
We’ll never host a Winter Olympics. Or the Summer Games, apparently.
PHOTO GALLERY
The best of Midwest ski resorts
But just because we don’t have the biggest hills or the flashiest resorts, that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of good locales within a reasonable drive from Chicago where we can learn to carve turns, work on our snowboarding technique in edgy terrain parks, cruise with the kids or even enjoy the apres-ski scene.
Then, when you get good enough — and have your pennies saved up — you can head for Colorado’s Rockies, California’s Sierra mountains, Utah’s Wasatch or even the deep powder of the Bugaboo or Monashee ranges in eastern British Columbia.
Thanks to the science of snowmaking, the Midwest’s ski and snowboard areas can build up a good snowpack — as long as the temperature gets below freezing at night.
Here’s a rundown on a handful of resorts in our region that stand out from the rest for one reason or another.
Best place for newbies
Wilmot Mountain is only about 60 miles from Chicago on the Wisconsin-Illinois border. So it doesn’t take long to reach the resort’s 230-foot hill east of Twin Lakes in Kenosha County’s Kettle Moraine region.
Once you arrive, there are more than 300 certified ski and snowboard instructors ready to get you started on the right (or left) foot. Wilmot also has a full-fledged children’s program for youngsters starting at age 4. (And they’ve been making snow here for 57 years, so they have that part nailed.)
“Nobody knows more about teaching skiing and snowboarding — for all ages — than Wilmot Mountain,” says spokesman Brian Beebe, who notes that at 71 years of age, Wilmot is the oldest ski resort in the Midwest and second oldest in the United States.
“We’ve been doing it forever. That’s why it’s such a great place to come and learn,” he says.
Wilmot’s 25 runs cover 120 acres. It has eight chairlifts, three surface lifts, four terrain parks and night skiing and riding. Instruction also is offered in the evening, with the last classes going out at 7; wilmotmountain.com.
Best substitute for the West
At the other end of the spectrum, there’s central Wisconsin’s Granite Peak Resort, which is about as close as you’ll get to Colorado’s Steamboat Springs in the Badger State.
With 74 runs and a 710-foot vertical drop, Granite Peak is the tallest and largest ski and snowboard area in Wisconsin. It also has the fastest ski lift: a high-speed “six pack” that will zip you to the top of the hill in three minutes.
Charles Skinner, who bought the resort in 2000, has invested a whopping $15 million in Granite Peak.
A former racer on the University of Oregon ski team, Skinner says he wanted to give Midwest skiers and snowboarders more of a Western winter experience. He’s done that in spades, bolstering the number of runs by 60, purchasing hundreds of snow-making guns to give 100 percent coverage, and beefing up the ski and snowboard rental stock.
Granite Peak also has five terrain parks, night skiing, two chalets with giant fireplaces and tree skiing and boarding; skigranitepeak.com.
Best for families
Chestnut Mountain’s 19 trails and its seven-acre terrain park should have something to keep everyone in your brood happy.
The resort, tucked into the unglaciated hills of northwest Illinois near Galena, boasts a 475-foot vertical drop tumbling down to the Mississippi River, as well as half-mile long trails with terrain to coax the beginner and challenge the expert.
It also features a top-flight ski-and-snowboard rental system and facility that will get you on the snow fast, plus a snowsports school — with two age-appropriate kids programs — that can get you started or tune up your skills. Moreover, it has a ski-in, ski-out Alpine-style lodge, with a pool, hot tub, sauna and two restaurants.
Its terrain park has something for the entire family, with half-pipes, quarter-pipes, jumps and more than 20 types of rails for novices on up; chestnutmtn.com.
Best apres-ski scene
Devil’s Head Resort, located about 30 miles northwest of Madison, Wis., has long been popular with Chicagoans as a place to play golf (in the summer) and to ride the snow come winter.
It has a respectable 500-foot vertical drop, 10 lifts, night skiing, several terrain parks and 30 trails on 200 acres. And it boasts a big lodging base, with more than 240 hotel rooms on site.
Once the sun goes down, there’s more to do here than curl up with a book in front of the fireplace.
The Devil’s Den bar usually has live bands on Saturdays. For the 20- to 30-something crowd, the Avalanche features DJs, a big dance floor and some pool tables. And if you want to watch the night skiing and boarding, head to Smokey’s, where the deck faces the slopes and the resort’s half-pipe.
For the married-with-kids set, Devil’s Head has a parents-night-out option on Saturdays. Youngsters can dine, play games and dash about while supervised by counselors, giving Mom and Dad a chance to have a quiet dinner and hit the slopes for some night skiing; devilsheadresort.com.
Best terrain parks
One of these years, Tyrol Basin may just convert all of its 90 acres into one big terrain park.
OK, that’s an exaggeration. But with nearly a third of Tyrol devoted to freestyle skiing and snowboarding, terrain parks are a big deal at this little resort, about 20 miles west of Madison.
Tyrol was one of the first areas to welcome pesky snowboarders. It built its first half-pipe way back in 1989. The initial terrain park followed two years later. It also was the first Midwest resort to own its own pipe-grooming machine.
Now, it has dozens of boxes, rails and pipes scattered around its slopes, ranging from some easy ones on beginner terrain to combinations of rails and larger jumps on black diamond runs.
“We’re always changing things around here so it doesn’t get stale,” says owner Don McKay.
Tyrol offers night skiing; tyrolbasin.com.
Best multi-day resort
Crystal Mountain in northwest Michigan is a 5.5-hour drive from Chicago. But fans of this classy resort near Traverse City say it’s worth the haul, especially if you’re going to stay for longer than the usual weekend.
Crystal has a fully developed, pedestrian-friendly base village with tons of lodging. You can park your car and pretend you’re in Zermatt, Switzerland (minus the mountains).
In addition to skiing and snowboarding, the resort also offers horse-drawn surrey rides, a spa, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, ice skating, sled-dog rides, kids programs and other activities at the Alpine-style base. The slopes cover 85 acres featuring 45 runs, nine lifts and two terrain parks spread out over three hills.
As for lodging, Crystal Mountain has everything from hotel rooms, condos, bungalows and cottages all the way up to ski-in and ski-out townhomes with as many as five bedrooms; crystalmountain.com.
Best bargain for kids
If you have kids under age 12, Cascade Mountain is the place to ski and ride. That’s because this resort, located about 40 miles north of Madison, lets the 12-and-under set carve turns, do tricks and catch big air — for free.
All that you and your young buds have to do is show up with an adult who buys a lift ticket. And there’s no limit, like one-kid-per-adult. If a grown-up escorts five youngsters to the lift ticket window, the kids all get in free, says general manager Randy Axelson, who used to teach at Utah’s Deer Valley Resort.
Once they have their free tickets in hand, kids can take advantage of the area’s 10 lifts, which serve 34 trails on 160 acres. The resort also has four terrain parks, including a school bus as a rail and a snowtubing park, which requires a separate ducat; cascademountain.com.
Brian E. Clark is a Madison, Wis.-based free-lance writer — and skier.