Help skiers decide
Planning a Multi-Resort Ski Road Trip Using Open Data
Northeast and Colorado clusters from the same points you already counted.
A road trip is a cluster, not a bucket list. Plot downhill points you can drive between, then stop for a night when the next hill is farther than you want to ski tired. The Northeast is the easy demonstration: New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania stacked in one view. Open Trip Planner after you like the cluster. This page is the map you should look at before you add pins.
Northeast downhill points. A week can cover several states.
Step 1. Count the states you will actually cross
US state bars tell you where the inventory is. Colorado is first in this file. New England is first if you start in Boston. Do not stitch Colorado and Vermont into one itinerary because both bars are tall. Pick one cluster. The trip planner will not save you from a 1,800-mile “and then.”
State counts. Choose a region, then drive.
Step 2. Colorado as the other cluster
Same points, other mountain range. Days are longer between Front Range and the San Juans than between Killington and Pico. Chapman Hill is a Durango add-on, not a substitute for a destination day. Sleep in one town. Ski two mapped hills. That is a road trip. Five famous names with six-hour transfers is a commute.
Colorado points. Distances are the plan.
Step 3. One overnight hill
Montage is a stop if you are threading Pennsylvania. Bristol is a stop if you are on the New York Thruway. Neither needs a destination pass. Check the live map so you know the hill still has lifts. Then check hours. The atlas does not know about night skiing this Thursday.
Bristol. A Thruway stop with a mapped mix.
Step 4. Alps weeks are trains, not cars
If the cluster is the Alps, the 3 Valleys is one polygon you can ski without moving the car. That is a different sport from New England hopping. Use Drive Time at home. Use the winter map abroad. Do not copy a US day-count onto a French domain and call it a road trip.
The 3 Valleys. Stay put and ski the polygon.