Them vs. us

You may have noticed that most of my skiing-related subjects are directly connected to either Whistler or mountains in Colorado. That is because on the North American ski scene there is 'us' and 'them' fighting for ski resort supremacy. When ski magazines such as Powder pick their top choices for resorts each year, it is almost gauranteed that Whistler, one or two of the Vail-owned mountains and one or two of the Aspen-owned mountains will all be in the top 10. For people that live in Whistler, such as Pique newsmagazine's G.D. Maxwell, going to ski in Colorado meant getting over his Coloradophobia. For those who have spent their whole lives in one of the resorts, the hatred runs deep and the stereotypes are plentiful although a number of them are true.
Said by a Whistlerite: "They may have higher mountains, but the terrain isn't challenging, they hardly get any snow and Aspen is everything we don't want to become."
Said by a Coloradan: "They may get way more snow, but its the wet, heavy, rain-like stuff and the lifts are always crowded.
As someone who has held seasons passes to all these mountains and as someone who had to get over his own Whistlerphobia when moving here, I'm going to give you the brief run down of the differences. Vail owns five resorts in Colorado and Aspen owns four. In both cases the mountains are close to each other and one pass gets you access to all of the mountains with either of the companies. Whistler has one mountain, but has way more terrain between the two peaks that you can never get bored. Whistler gets way more snow, but Colorado gets the soft fluffy stuff that is superior for skiing.
Maxwell finally concedes in his article to saying that Colorado isn't an avoid-at-any-costs kind of place. He even goes on to say that they're not the kind of places they are made out to be around towns like Whistler. While people in both towns will poke fun at the other, Maxwell and pretty much every skier I've ever met realizes at the end of the day that skiing is skiing and the more place you can ski the better.
These places may fight for tourists and skiing supremacy, but next time I'll tell you about the place that really should be the 'them' for everyone who lives in every ski resort around the world.