Silver Mountain Resort, Idaho, United States

4WindWolfess 5:00 PM Jan 27, 2022

Fantastic skiing if there has been some recent snow; otherwise, can be icy.
I first skied at Silver Mt about 15 years ago. I arrived on a Friday night during heavy snowfall that closed the passes both east and west, isolating Kellogg, Idaho. I rode the gondola (an experience in itself, especially in a blinding snowstorm) and had some of the best, dry powder skiing that I have ever experienced in more than 50 years of skiing all over the US and Europe. I returned this January to get away from the wet slop of the Cascades where I live. The gondola parking lot is maybe 50 ft across the street. An all-day weekday walk-up ticket was about $65. Although it hadn't snowed for about a week, the conditions were not too bad. A bit icy in the first few morning runs, but then OK by late morning. Not all of the lifts were operating, as with most resorts this year it seems. The runs are varied and absolutely gorgeous when the sky is blue. There are a lot of black runs, double black runs, a reasonable amount of intermediate runs and perhaps not a lot of green runs. The chair lifts are kind of old and slow, so if it had been a weekend, the lift lines might have been a problem, but there was no waiting whatsoever mid-week. Also, I would say that the proportion of boarders to skiers is among the highest I have experienced. I spent two full days exploring as many different runs as I could, and still probably didn't have a chance to ski half the runs. I'd definitely go back, but try to time my visit for when there is some fresh new snow.

3Julie G 5:00 PM Dec 18, 2020

Water park-awesome, tubing not so much
Cons: Took our family of 9 snow tubing. Check-in was easy and the gondola ride was fun, but they way overbooked the snow tubing time slots. Two of our party had to wait an extremely long time to even get a tube to use and the lines to get back up the hill were so long that in the whole 2-hour session, you could only get about 6 runs for 30 seconds of fun. The staff was stressed and one of the young lady staff members was gruff and pretty much barked orders at everyone. Finally, they started making everyone trade tubes at every turn. Definitely not worth the money they charge...at least on this day. TIp: get on the gondola at least 15 min to 20 min early and be up on the mountain in line BEFORE your time session starts or you might not get to sled very much. Pros: The Silver Rapids Indoor water part was great for all ages and if we had to do it over again, we'd spend two days there and skip the snow tubing.