While Matt was hobnobbing with famous actors-cum-travel writers (or vice versa), I spent my night sitting in a dark corner of a small theater. The audience’s energy was electric and the whoops erupted throughout the night. Those hollers were unleashed for the sensory assault brought on by the premier of Warren Miller’s most recent epic ski flick, “Wintervention.”

Capitalizing on anticipation brought on by the first few inches of snow resting on the Bozeman streets, the timing couldn’t have been any better to get everyone jazzed up about the possibilities awaiting everyone in the Northern Hemisphere this time of year. Personally, it’s a great time of year to break an arm (long story . . . I’ll spare you), because for the most part, it’s a transitional time between the bike and ski season.

Or what was brought to my attention last night at the movie, this time of year is more of a transition from bike travel season to ski travel season. Lately, I’ve been looking at maps not for areas to travel to with my bike, but those mountain ranges I have not yet visited with my skis. Oh, the possibilities . . . (more…)

If you’re even remotely thinking of skiing this winter, you’ve got to check out this map of 68 ski resorts in the Northeast United States and Quebec. Coming from Colorado, I kind of forget just how many good ski spots there are in the East. Given that most are a day’s drive away for those in the region, you can also count on saving at least a few hundred dollars in plane fares alone (and save another 50% off lift tickets from Liftopia as we mentioned here in September).

Taking a gander at the map, going by trails alone, Vermont’s Killington with over 141 is the largest of the region and, surprisingly enough, Maine is home to 2 of the top 5 (Sugarloaf, Sunday River). Quebec’s Bromont and Vermont’s Okemo round out the top 5.

And since we’re on the subject, you may be saying, “Matt, you New York-centric/Northeast United States snob, what about where I live?”

Well, this is the time of year when every newspaper north of the equator tends to spit out their own guides, so here’s a few from around the world.

The Washington Post is highlighting slopes in the mid-Atlantic, the Telegraph has the skinny on where to ski in Italy this winter, and Condé Naste (in quite a departure from the norm) is listing the top 6 budget ski destinations in Europe.

And with that we wrap up part two of “Ski Week” here at TheExpeditioner.com. Not exactly by choice or detailed planning, but by sheer coincidence. Kind of like that ill-fated “Turkmenistan Week” we had a few months ago. I’m still receiving e-mails about that one. Never again.

Riksgransen, located in northern Sweden (and by northern Sweden I’m talking barely outside the Arctic Circle northern Sweden) is famed in the ski world as ” . . . a bit of a legendary place for the Swedes,” or for that matter, the world over, for both its extreme setting as well as one of the few places you can ski past midnight while the sun is still shining (and I thought it was cool to sit at a bar and drink a beer under the midnight sun in Sweden).

By plane, expect a 1.5-hour flight, or for the truly masochistic, cozy up with 5 ski bum strangers and take the 18-hour train north, where I’d recommend you bring along a large reserve of Schnapps and plenty of reindeer embroidered pullovers for the frigid ride north.