Customer Reviews

The Good Skiing and Snowboarding Guide 2000

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is excellent, but it's geared more towards folks who ski in Europe than in the U.S. or other locations. Of the book's 575 pages, about 400 pages describe European ski resorts. Only 100 pages review U.S. and Canadian locations, and a very brief 10 pages cover South America, Australia, Japan and a few other places. The resorts reviewed may very well be the "Good" (from the title) resorts, but I'm going to be spending 95% of my time skiing in North and South America, so this guide is about 70% useless. I was expecting more detail on the U.S. resorts and perhaps even some descriptions of accessible spots that aren't so glamourous, such as Sante Fe (which isn't even mentioned). Again, let me just say that this book is quite good, but I wouldn't have purchased it if I'd known that so much emphasis was on European ski resorts. Potential customers should be warned about how the content is divided.

I have spent most of my career in Europe, and have purchased several different editions of this guide over the past 10 years. Although there has been an inevitable "evolution" of the guide over the years, the one constant has always been the frank, sometimes almost brutally honest appraisals of all reviewed ski resorts. Essentially, it is a consumers' guide to ski resorts, reviewing all aspects of a resort, and highlighting both the strong points AND the weak points of each destination. It does not simply extoll the virtues of ever single resort, like one long advertisement, but it gives readers the opportunity to make an informed choice of destination based on the readers' personal preferences (and available finances!). It is true, the guide is very heavily slanted towards European resorts, but as pointed out in a previous review, this is because it is published in Britain, and has always been primarily aimed at a British readership.

I have lived in Europe for four years. This book has been my bible to ski resorts in Europe. The quick summarys to each resort are extremely accurate and helpful. If the author says that a resort is snow sure or has good nightlife you can trust him. I have purchased this book each year and find it to be the source on the large European ski resorts. I would agree that the US ski areas are not covered in detail but you must realise that the book is written for British skiers.

This is a wonderful resource with loads of candid opinions on what's great and not so great in the Alps. It is an overview and does not go into tremendous detail on any one resort, but if you are trying to pick from the overwhelming range of choices, this book will definitely help. Be aware, the book is written from a decidedly British point of view so it places much value on some criteria that American skiers may not value quite as highly (i.e. whether on-mountain dining is of a high enough quality). Also, don't rely on the section covering US resorts for anything other than a humerous glimpse at how the Brits size up places like Vail and Lake Tahoe (both criticized for "lack of non-skiing activities"). There are no photos and the mountain maps give only the broadest idea of the mountains and terrain offer, but the individual writeups are worth their weight in gold.

I have used this book over several editions to help me plan and book ski-holidays in Europe and the USA.

What the other reviewers don't mention (and neither does Amazon) is that the book is published by the not-for-profit Consumer's Association [of the UK], which is a similar organisation to Consumer's Union in the USA.

The American based reader will also need to realise that most UK skiers will be booking a 7-14 day package (which includes flights, usually charter for Europe, transfer and accomodation) with one of the large UK tour operators. Many will be booking accomodation ("chalets") which doesn't show up in the normal hotel guides for the resort since it is run exclusively by the tour company (and can be very cost effective, the operators will often sell the accomodation seperately). Another point for the independant and USA based skier is that UK tour companies often get discounts on lift passes booked through them (5-10% in Europe, 30-40% in USA).