Customer Reviews

100 Best Ski Resorts of the World

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Hey, this book is not bad. You get a list of the 100 best ski resorts of the world...mmm...isn't that the title of the book? Good title. The information is very concise. But something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong with a book like this. Ah, yes...the information is easily outdated...nothing you can't get from a web site which has more updated information. I can't think of a good reason to buy this book because it is in black and white so you can't exactly enjoy the photography which there is a terribly "lack of" in the book. You might want to save your money on this one. I did buy it, for your information, but I bought it used for pennies...and I still feel ripped off. Arrgg...

The first reviewer's comments about all of this information being available on the internet are true. With some knowledge of what to look for in a ski resort and some exposure to the sport, you probably don't need this book. However, I found it was a good gift (from the feedback I received) for someone just starting out skiing, trying to make decisions about where to go solo or in a mixed group of skiers. It introduces the reader to the names and locations of many of the best resorts in the world and has a common method of comparing them. That's very useful since online searches produce all sorts of results (every resort is "the best" in some respect, such as snowmaking, or apres-ski for under 30s, or instruction for children, or whatever). This book provides an easy framework for further research, and there is a need for that in the market.

This book is an excellent resource for skiers like me, who have skied a couple dozen of the resorts and who love the adventure and the skiing lifestyle. It's fairly up to date, being just six years old when most of the best ski areas date back 50+ years. My home ski area is Winter Park, mostly because I live in Denver. The description of WP is dead on! I've also skied all the Colorado front range resorts and most of the New England resorts; again, dead on! As an example, Mad River Glen in Vermont is a unique ski area -- not quite a resort. But most skiers familiar with MRG have skied Sugarbush, and the writeup for Sugarbush covers the entire Mad River Valley, beginning with Mad River Glen which I guess was the first of the MRG/Sugarbush resorts. I was particularly interested in the writeup of Maribel for a couple of reasons: its description says it's three times the acreage of Vail, in Colorado, with twice the vertical of Colorado's front range resorts. Just last weekend I skied WP with a friend's exchange student who has skied Maribel extensively, and his verbal description validated Wingenbach's. Further, I have had The Haute Route on my list of To Do's. If you're an adventure skier and you don't have The Haute Route on your list, you need to read this book to understand why it should be on your list. Before reading this book, I had never heard of "the legendary Vallee Blanche ski route, which drops 9,200 feet and streches for 15 miles before ending back at Chamonix. It is the longest lift-serviced ski run in the world." Anyway, if you know adventure skiing and you dream of more adventure skiing, you'll know that this author knows his subject. Wingenbach captures this subject better than anybody else I've ever read. If you're an adventure skier, you want to buy this for yourself; if you know an adventure skier (who truly knows his stuff and isn't some skier hodaddy like most tourists who I meet on Colorado ski lifts), you owe it to your friend to buy this book. Even if you're a tourist skier, you might want this book if you've caught the skier bug and can follow up on it. As for the reviews that say it's out of date, that's not the point; go on the internet to validate the information. I give this book the highest rating I could give. When the next edition is printed, I'll be first in line.