Skiing in Arizona and need a place to stay?

It’s that awesome time of year right now, when the weather in Phoenix is in the 60′s and 70′s, and you can do darned near anything you want, from hiking to golf to tennis to an afternoon picnic in the park.  It’s also ski season in Northern Arizona, with awesome ski conditions at both Sunrise and Arizona Snowbowl.

If you aren’t familiar with where to ski in Arizona, Sunrise is northeast of Phoenix about 230 miles, near the town of Pinetop, and is operated by the White Mountain Apache Indian tribe.  Snowbowl is just north of Flagstaff, and is within the Coconino National Forest.  Of the two facilities, Snowbowl offers more advanced terrain, but suffers from older ski lifts which limit it’s capacity.  Snowbowl is working on that problem, however.  Sunrise has spent a small fortune in recent years upgrading the park.  Sunrise boasts the only detachable high-speed quad chairlift in Arizona, to go along with 7 other chairlifts and 2 mighty-mites.  The terrain at Sunrise, however, is less challenging, composed of primarily blue rated trails.

For 2009, I have yet to get a ski day in, but apparently I’m one of the few, as Snowbowl has reached capacity 4 times already, requiring them to turn away would-be skiers.  FYI, Snowbowl offers free skiing on your birthday.  Mine happens to be next week…you’ll never guess where I’ll be.

If you are considering a ski trip/weekend, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I own a rather large cabin in Pinetop that makes an excellent launching point for the family that skis together.  Our home offers 4 bedrooms, 4.5 baths and 3000 square feet or fairly luxurious living conditions.  Why am I mentioning our home?  Because it is available for rent on a nightly basis.  If you click through, you’ll see all of the photos and description of the home.  Plus, you’ll see the calendar of availability, and that we charge $250/night plus $150 cleaning fee per visit. For a home that sleeps 12, that’s not too bad.  In fact, it’s a serious bargain.

You can’t see the calendar from December, but it was essentially rented every night.  Currently, you may notice, however, it’s not very booked during the week, and here’s where you come in.  If you are reading this, and mention that you found out about the cabin via my blog in your reservation request (sorry, there isn’t a promo code field), I’ll cut the nightly rate in half for any week night you book.  For any weekend night, I’ll cut $50/night off.  Sorry, I can’t do anything about the cleaning fee, as that is my hard cost to clean up after 12 folks sleeping in 8 beds.

We don’t mind multiple families sharing the cost/house.  In fact, that’s why every bedroom has it’s own private bath.  Plus, with the money you save, you can easily afford to take a private lesson.  Or maybe even learn to snowboard (just don’t ask me to try snowboarding, I like being on my feet whole day).

Photo credit: thanasim25

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