As for a great intermediate mountain, I think Breckenridge or Beaver Creek would be great places. The blue runs at Breck aren’t very aggressive at all and the few real flat cat tracks that the mountain has can be avoided by most boarders in most circumstances.

BC on the other hand does a lot of grooming which makes their steeper stuff a lot more friendly to the intermediate. I’ve never skied a place like Deer Valley that prides itself on extensive grooming but I would imagine it would be the same.

I would say in the Tahoe region, Sierra is a good mix of intermediate terrain and West Coast acreage, or moving over to Utah (just from my own personal experience), Solitude is one of the more family-oriented resorts in the Rockies.

For an East-Coaster like myself, choices in Vermont would be Okemo and Sugarbush.

Whistler is good, but I find it quite frustrating… I consider myself an intermediate skier. Lots of cattracks… = slow and leg burn. There are also lots of Black diamond runs and advanced terrain. Not to mention big crowds. It’s hard to find terrain on Whistler that is somewhere between easy and too hard. In my personal opinion

I definitely think Cypress Mountain in Vancouver, BC is a perfect intermediate mountain resort for the price. It’s 20 minutes away from Vancouver. The lift tickets aren’t too expensive. They’ve got high speed quad chairs. There’s lots of tree runs and a “sky chair” that is pretty much all intermediate terrain. Not many cattracks. Nothing too advanced. And beginner areas that are easy to stay away from.

But Cypress is still a relatively small resort.

If we’re talking “big” resorts here… I’m going to go for Apex Mountain or Big White.. both in interior BC. Lots of powder. Lots of terrain… great tree runs… and not too many flat cattracks!