I've ridden a lot, about 500 days on the hill or so. Lake Tahoe is my home area, having spend several week long treks to Whistler, Vail/Breck/Keystone/Beaver, Jackson Hole, Japan etc, and thought I had ridden good snow in almost all of those places. I mean it was good, and the bar was set pretty high.
Sure, it was good snow, all resort skiing, a lot of trees/glades, and the "every once in a while" powder day. In 500 days, you've seen most snow conditions, and generally skiied more than most of the population has in a lifetime . . .
I have never had an experience like I had in the 2 days with K3. Sure the weather had a lot to do with it (50+ cms in a 2 day period never hurts either).
But let's break it down like this. I love snowboarding, and I generally pay enough to fly out to places to check out the snow, but still don't want to break the bank while doing so. That doesn't mean I'll sleep in my car to ride fresh stuff anymore (though I have, those days are gone), but I'm also not one to stay at the best hotels etc - I simply want to ride, and was very skeptical about dropping a few hundred/day to ride in a Cat. But let me tell you this - even for me, this was worth every penny. The staff is top notch and very knowledgeable, professional, friendly, and fun. You get in groups of 14 or so, and yes you do have to ride to the lowest common denominator, but the steep terrain we rode, rivals all of the double black off-piste terrain I got to in Whistler and Jackson, with the exception of Corbet's Couloir. We had everything from wide open free-for-all flowing plains of pillowy goodness, to steep gullys and chutes that open up to broad valleys, to dense (I mean really dense) technical steep tree skiing.
I'd recommend K3 in a heartbeat, and will be back next season. I wish I knew about this earlier in life, of course I would have been more hesitant to drop a few pretty pennies back then. All in all, a great outfit, first class service and experience, and made this the best 2 ski days I've ever had - and I think it's rivaling some pretty damn good days in my past. read more