Travel and Adventure

Thinking about planning a ski vacation? These links can help. Tour operators on the right. Heli and cat ski links on the left. Equipment rental links on the lower left. You can book anywhere, but Rusty has a friend in the business. So please help a hard working ski pro who is also a travel agent.

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Adventure Links

Travel Links
Heli-Ski
Rusty loves  "snow cat"; "helicopter"; and "back country" skiing and riding but it's soooo expensive!  Heli-ski.org has links to US operators.  Canada has some great heli operations: Mike Wiegele is a big heli operation. Canadian Mountain Holidays is the other big outfit. Bella Coola looks super cool, they have a great site. Mica specializes in small groups. Alaska has a lot of heli ski operations: Chugach Powder Guides (Alyeska) (highly recommended by Rusty), Last Frontier Ranch is in between Alyeska and Valdez (tell Dave that Rusty sent ya). They have a cool business card on a CD!  Valdez heli-camps, Cordova, Doug Coombs (he died, but the name lives on) does heli out of Valdez (and also does camps in La Grave. Switzerland and Verbier, France). Rendezvous also operates in the Chugach. Heli in Nevada's Ruby Mountains with snow cat backup. Last Frontier Heli is in (way northern) British Columbia. Northern Escape heli skiing looks like a first class operation to Rusty.  TLH is another BC heli operation. Selkirk-Tangiers is in Revelstoke, BC. The International Free Skiers Association has photos and "extreme" contests (check the schedule). Mount Bailey has snowcat skiing in Oregon. Snowcat Montana is near Big Sky. At play has some extreme team tips and photos, but Rusty rates this site only so so. Arctic Odysseys to ski Canada's Baffin Island by plane  (site is lame). Alpine Skills operates out of Donner Pass - good place to learn backcountry skills. Pantheon is a new Canadian operation that flies you in, but then you winter camp and hike from there. Great Canadian operates 4 person A star choppers out of Golden, BC. Chatter Creek is heli access cat skiing in BC. Monashee offers 2, 3 and 4 day trips. Mustang used to be one of the Monashee lodges. Powder Cowboy offers cat trips out of Fernie. White Grizzly guarantees 100,000 feet per week in the Selkirks. Selkirk Wilderness also does the Purcells and has a 24 person lodge. Purcell Heli is another operator out of Golden. Valhalla Powdercats has cat and heli skiing. Selkirk Tangiers is out of Revelstoke, BC.
Heli-Ski Nepal baby! talk about adventure! or how about lift serviced Himalayan skiing?
On the Snow has heli and cat links with good descriptions of the operations. Yahoo's heli skiing links.
Go with a Pro! This service let's you book trips with famous skiers and snowboarders.
Selkirk Experience has guided trips for the purists who like to walk uphill instead of fly (Canada and the Alps!).
Rental Links
Try rentskis.com. for ski and board equipment throughout Colorado (10% discount for online reservations).
Online Ski Rentals! Breeze has a lot of shops out West.
Skibutlers comes to your place to fit boots. Available in Tahoe, Colorado, Salt Lake, Jackson Hole and Whistler.
Park City
South Lake Tahoe
Steamboat
Vail
Whistler
Winter Park (broken 10/23)
Lock your luggage with locks the TSA can get into (without your keys!) and relock after they inspect from TravelSentry (available at Walmart!) and Safe skies . 
Help out a starving ski instructor - Cosby Travel Pro will work really hard to book your travel. Let Arleta do the leg work to save you money and get all the details taken care of.
myskitrip is a pretty cool site that covers every major resort and then some.
Expedia has trips to 30 different resorts. Slick, Easy and Informative. Not sure about the prices.
Why lug your skis on your trip? Sports Express will pick up from your house and deliver skis directly to the resort for prices starting at $29 (1 way). They use UPS or Fed Ex.
PowderPassport is a short term discount card for a bunch of mostly obscure East coast ski resorts, but hey, Jay Peak is pretty cool.
Whitewood has info for a lot of western resorts. Rusty likes the organization by resort or town, plus the extra links for mountain info, maps, etc.
Canadian Powder Skiing Adventures offers guided powder experiences based out of various Alberta and BC resorts.
TASC has taken over the business that Teen Winter Sports used to do. This is a DC organization that puts together a lot of ski trips for teens.
Moguls has a great site for researching resorts and good deals in their email newsletters. Check out their travel tips.
ski-tops lists packages by area you want to go to (walking through a lot of packages is a little awkward - keep hitting the next button)
Ski.com - hey somebody had to get that URL! They've got a good mix of different packages for the big name western resorts.
Lynx ski vacations offers last minute travel bargains. Click on newsletter signup to get notices of last minute deals. 
Ski Canada (while the exchange rate is still great). Ski the "back woods" of Canada on the MagikBus - check out their Powder week (Rusty says this looks way cool).
More general travel related resort information
Ski-Europe (Rusty likes what they've done to their site). Central Holidays specializes in European trips. Adventure on skis specializes in European trips. Another Europer is Lindenmeyr. 
Aspen Ski Tours does the Rockies. SkiTheRockies has a nice clean site. SnowVentures says they customize vacation packages (mostly CO resorts, but all over out west)
ToursDeSport does Eastern US and Canada, eh?
SkiAlpineExperience fashions themselves as adventure travel consultants.
DiscoverColorado has coupons! Colorado-ski-vactions is yet another CO discounter. Vacationsinc just does Winterpark and Silvercreek but they have online booking. 
Colorado Ski Holidays welcomes international customers. 
Tours de Sport thinks they have the best prices. 
Daman Nelson travel runs skirun.com (online trip quotes). 
Ski Vacation Planners is yet another site. EastWestResorts does CO, Utah and Big Sky (ho hum).
Banchi does East and West US.
Amtrak has ski trips by train. (try Big Mountain in Whitefish, MT or the Vermonter)
ResortQuest specializes in high end condo rentals and has an ok search engine. Great for groups of 4+. They have a snow guarantee that allows you to change plans if the snow is bad.
Mountain Getaway has "research info" on 36 "popular" resort destinations.
Skitops is from the ski tour operators association. They have some last minute deals. Click on the current specials link.
Snow Tours is slow and has no prices. That's why they are last on the list. Maybe they'll get better next year.
Holidaze has trips to the big time resorts all over the world.
All-Mountain has lots of European and South American destinations and escorted trips. Just make sure to click on the alpine vacation planner graphic.
Snosearch is another Euro+SA tour operator. They've got sample prices on their site! 
Target Sport Adventures has a few specials. Their offers to other resorts are "custom" vacations (i.e. call them for a price).
Club Med is at ski resorts too! Their web site is a little non-skier friendly. You have to search for resorts by activity (even that is goofy - not all resorts show up on the search) or know ahead of time where they are at. Which is: Crested Butte, USA; Les Arcs, France; Alpe d´Huez Les Bergers, France; Valbella, Switzerland, Val d'Isere/Tignes France;
skimag.com has a travel planner for 15 US resorts, but it was dog slow when Rusty tried it. Good for searching bit by bit.
TheRusty has at least one British visitor, so here's a UK ski travel agency. Actually if you're going to Europe, the Brits can sometimes get better prices.

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