Breckenridge Resort, Colorado With the long-awaited opening of BreckConnect, an eight-person gondola stretching from just off Main Street to Peak 8 (with a mid-station at Shock Hill), Breckenridge streamlines the link between its homey Victorian town and the slopes and effectively eliminates many of those annoying bus commutes to the powder. ($235 for three days; www.breckenridge.com)
Park City Mountain Resort, Utah Named Terrain Park of the Year for two years running by Transworld Snowboarding magazine, Park City will add new rails, funboxes, and jumps to its four parks. The Park City All-Stars Team, including Olympic gold medalist Shaun White and X-Games champ Tanner Hall, gave input on the designs. ($148 for two days; www.pcski.com) Stowe Mountain Resort, Vermont For decades Route 108 has chopped Stowe skiing in half, separating challenging Mount Mansfield from smaller, mellower Spruce Peak—and keeping many skiers in the dark about improvements at the latter. Heads up: This winter a Poma lift finally unifies the resort's mountains and renders the area's lumbering shuttle bus obsolete. ($142 for a two-day lift ticket; www.stowe.com)
Whistler Blackcomb Ski Resort, British Columbia North America's largest ski area makes a thousand of its 8,171 acres (8,171 hectares) even easier to reach with the addition of Symphony Express, a high-speed quad chair to the top of Whistler Mountain's Flute Bowl that accesses forgiving above-tree-line runs and a new high-intermediate gladed area. ($115 for two days; www.whistlerblackcomb.com)
Weekend getaways
