Oh man you shouldn't have. WALL OF TEXT, INCOMING:
So this was totally last-minute on my part. Having spent a few weeks beating myself up over various options (mostly Colorado, just because it's easy enough to get in & out, and a short flight, and Adam's living there), IDK what happened, but yesterday morning I guess I was just doing my due diligence, and said "OK, who's got the most snow" and it was the PNW, Tahoe, and Utah.
Utah is out, although I would have no problem going back there, we really are trying to get away from just mailing it in to UT or CO
every year, trying to ride some new-to-us mountains in new-to-us places. That said, in a year like this, the "change of scenery" can wait until next year IMO, I could easily justify saying fuck it you guys, remember the last time we rode Utah in April in an 800" season? Because I do, and it was tits.
Tahoe is out, because I just couldn't make the timetables work. There's no direct flights to Reno, and non-direct flights sap too much time, we'd end up only 3 days on the mountain and frankly while I'll take that if I have to, it's just not enough. Nearest direct would be San Francisco which is 4 hours drive after a 5+ hour flight. And there's the very real risk, although later in the season not as much, that you get snowed *out* of the resort. Shit just happened to Tyler and some of those dudes they had to stop at Diamond Peak because the roads were closed couldn't get up to Boreal or wherever they were going.
Colorado sounds good enough, but again, I've ridden Colorado on 5 or 6 separate occasions? Twice in Winter Park, Breck and Vail a few times each, and some cruddy November turns at A-Basin. There's a lot more of Colorado to explore, of course, and I was looking forward to checking out some different mountains, but I didn't want to spend the entire trip at only one place, and the various spots we were looking at, being off-the-beaten path, there wasn't any good way to string a few of them together. Sure, we could've tried a day each at Loveland, Monarch, and then 2 days at Crested Butte (or Wolf Creek, alternate), or a day each at Loveland, Copper, and 2 at Steamboat, but IDK, that whole thing was predicated on taking an early-ass flight and trying to salvage a half-day at Loveland in order to make "4" days happen.
And then there's the fucking legendary Mt Baker which has gotten like 630" of snow already (season average is 650). And for shits and grins I said can I get to Seattle? Well, there's a redeye home from Seattle, and if, instead of taking an early flight out there I take a late flight the night before... we can end up with 4 full days and still end up getting home basically a full day sooner (ok, not really, I'll be home at 9am instead of midnight). Lift tickets are also like $65 instead of $100-150.
Arguably could've bumped my outbound flight to Denver and I was thinking of doing that actually, but the allure of Baker was too much. Plus, with Colorado being a short flight, there are no redeyes to Detroit, and even the latest flight out of Denver means you really can't ride that day of departure, unless you're riding Eldora or maybe an early morning half at Loveland. So in order to get 4 days out of Colorado, I was going to have to leave Wednesday afternoon, and wouldn't be home until Monday night. To Seattle, I'll be home Monday morning. That makes a difference IMO.
Finally, I posted a poll on Facebook with a few destinations, people could add other choices as well, but Baker just destroyed the entire field. Utah was a distant second.