It’s May, and the POWDER staff is bored.
Just kidding, we have a print magazine to make, content from POWDERWeek to write, edit, and create, and a whole summer’s worth of digital content to plan. Contrary to popular belief, our workload doesn’t slow down when the snow melts.
To lighten our load (slightly) and hopefully engage you, our beloved reader, in the process, we’ve launched a weekly Discussion Forum on POWDER’s Instagram.
The first question was: When was the best ski season of your life?
The post has received over 150 comments, with responses ranging from a specific year to longer, thought-out stories. Each member of the POWDER staff decided to jump in on the fun as well, and their longer responses have been included below. Enjoy.
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Beny Huckaby
Beny Huckaby, Social Media Producer
When reading through the comments on our original IG post, the following stuck with me: “the first winter I worked at the mountain,” or “this year was my first season living in the mountains.” Whether it’s luck or something more, winter seems to reward those who commit to the bit. If you’re dedicating your life to being in or around the mountains, winter will come through.
It’s easy to sit in the valley and talk about little snow the mountains have gotten this year, relative to others, but it’s just as easy to miss the moments when it shows up.
I spent a winter break shoveling snow, setting ropes, moving boxes of chili, and cleaning toilets at a mid-mountain restaurant at Alta Ski Area. A broke college kid, I spent more than I made, skied borrowed skis, and learned how to sidestep.
By the snowfall numbers, it wasn’t the best season, but in my book, I doubt I’ll ever top that season. Commit to the winter, and you will be rewarded.
Photo: Ian Greenwood
Matt Lorelli, Senior Editor
Similar to Beny’s reflection above, I resonated with the commenters who said their best season was the first they spent living in the mountains.
I’ve been on skis every winter since I was four years old, but it wasn’t until the Winter of 23/24 that I logged a “complete” season. Let me explain.
Growing up in Delaware, I was lucky to ski 15 days each season. We would make as many weekend jaunts up to the Poconos as we could, and my Dad made sure to book at least one vacation either to Vermont or out West, but most of my seasons were marked by 10-15 days on snow, at best.
When I moved to Truckee, California, in November of 2023, I felt like I had just won the lottery. Not only was it the first time I lived within a 30-minute drive of a ski resort, but it was a world-class resort at that. Ironically enough, the season started slowly, but I didn’t care.
That winter, I skied in rain, ice, slush, powder, hail, graupel, sunshine, and every condition Mother Nature could throw at Palisades Tahoe. I bushwhacked, I skied over rocks, I logged first tracks on rope drops, and I scored more powder turns than I had in the 20+ ski seasons that came before.
If I had a chance to be on skis, I took it, no matter the snow quality.
My persistence in skiing no matter what paid off, and I was treated to one of the best spring seasons I could have ever dreamed of. As a serial ski day tracker, I actually logged more days on snow in the months of March, April, and May than in December, January, and February. It was awesome.
I capped off the season by doing three snowblade hikes and descents at Palisades Tahoe on Memorial Day.
I’ll never forget Winter 23/24, and I now consider it “the first winter of the rest of my life.”
Photo: Izzy Lidsky
Izzy Lidsky, Staff Photographer/Writer
“Best” could quantify many different aspects of one ski season compared to another.
When thinking about the “best” season of my life, my brain quickly goes to the years I skied the most days, the most powder, the most memorable lines, and so on. Since I was in high school, skiing has been an integral part of my life, but it’s also just that: a part of a whole. I’ve skied incredible, deep powder day after powder day while struggling with a chronic pain condition.
I’ve skied more days in a season than ever, whilst riddled with existential doom. If skiing itself is the metric we’re going off of, then sure, I could throw out 2020/21 as a pretty darn memorable one, or make a strong case for 2022/23, but life is so much larger than skiing, and arguably, so is the sport itself.
Despite the fact that no one (including us) can shut up about just how much of a wash the 2025/26 season was, seeing quite a few people comment on our post that this had, in fact, been the best season of their lives, brought me so much joy.
A couple of comments in particular sparked my own thinking, from folks who had skied in multiple countries this year, or been on a particular trip that had filled their cup, or just found a little more love for their own community.
I didn’t ski the most days of my life this year, or the deepest day of my life, but I did ski in five different countries this season. I was able to meet and photograph skiers I’d only ever dreamed of working with in Switzerland.
I fell back in love with ski touring, got much better at skiing trees (finally), summited the highest peak I’ve ever been on skis in Georgia, before we skied across the border of Russia for long enough that I’m counting it. I skied some of the most fun terrain in amazing snow at Asahidake in Japan, in memory of a friend we lost too soon. I returned to the Tetons and experienced a full spectrum of conditions while seeing so many old friends and making new ones at POWDER Week. And after each red-eye flight, long travel day, and time I unpacked my suitcase, I got to ski our sweet little (not really that little) volcanic butte with all my friends that make it feel like home, no matter how much or little snow there is.
It would be tough to look back at this season and say it wasn’t the “best” season I’ve had, and not just because of how many days or how much powder I skied. It was the experiences my skis and my camera brought me to, quite literally around the world, that make me so grateful for all the people I got to connect with, the confidence in myself I found, and the love for the place I do get to come home to. Snow or no snow, it’ll be hard to top this year.
Ian Greenwood
Ian Greenwood, Staff Writer
One comment from our fun little discussion prompt on Instagram jumped out to me: “Next one.” Of course, that meant the responder was thinking about the upcoming season. That’s the magic of skiing, I think.
We have an enforced break every summer, and no season pans out quite the same way. You can’t say in advance how good the snow will be or what trips you’ll end up taking. It’s a question mark with plenty of anticipation that reminds me of Christmas morning.
From the age of around three to the end of high school or college, that’s exactly how human lives are structured. While I wouldn’t say I looked forward to the start of school, it felt like a reset button. Maybe I’d find new friends or new interests. If during the previous school year things didn’t start to feel right, I could call a mulligan by the end and try a different angle the next go-around. Plus, it was just exciting imagining what could change.
But once you’re off in the big, bad adult world, life blurs together. You have a job. You have no summer vacations. All of it, at times, can blend into a featureless morass. That isn’t necessarily bad. Most people aren’t resetting their adult lives every year unless something goes wrong. I do miss the enforced chapters of school life, though.
Skiing brings that back. No matter how awful a season (I’m looking at you, 2025-26) was, there’s always another one. And maybe, before it, we’ll finally get in ski shape or plan a trip to Japan. We don’t have to do these lofty things, of course, but it’s fun to dream. Skiing lets us do that every year for our entire lives.
Did I answer the original question? Nope. Here’s my answer, and it’s not an entire season but one day. I’ll keep it quick. In college, my friends and I caught a sleeper springtime pow day at Whistler and then, that night, partied our faces off in the woods. I could be getting too old for one of those things, but you never know what next winter might bring.
Photo: Pete Stone
Max Ritter, Gear Editor
I can’t really remember life before skiing, but if we’re counting it by days, skiing wasn’t actually a major part of my life growing up in New York City.
In fact, I probably didn’t ski more than 10 days a year until moving to Colorado for college, but I sure as shit identified as a skier. Whether it was the copies of POWDER, Skiing Magazine, or Freeskier that would live in my utterly destroyed blue Dakine Heli Pro schoolba (next to my laptop emblazoned with ski brand stickers), or the fact that I incessantly doodled ski lines into my school books, or the fact that I went to as many ski movie premieres as I could in New York, I was definitely all in.
That’s all to say that I never really defined my seasons as successful or not. For many years, my ski “schedule” was so outside of my own control that any day on snow was obviously the best day ever. This was purely about the love of the game, not the outcome. It wasn’t until college that my actual days on snow really started racking up.
By sophomore year, 50+ day seasons became the norm. I worked a full-time job at a local ski shop to pay for a pass and get on fresh gear, joined the CU Backcountry Club for access to epic weekend trips, and forged lifelong friendships in the mountains, including meeting my wife. My senior year (my first senior year, if you’re really counting), I passed 100 days, which took some effort. Shoutout skiing Mary’s Glacier in September. Each year was better than the next, by any traditional metric: number of days, lines skied, skill progression, or trips taken.
Post-college, I moved to Jackson to work for TGR, and life really took off. Access to skiing was now absolutely on my terms, with two world-class resorts, multiple lifetimes’ worth of backcountry skiing, and a rad (and rowdy) cast of locals to keep up with.
Every season has had its merits, and I’ve had enough life-affirming experiences in the mountains here that the years have honestly started to blend together. The Teton Range, now home, continues to shape the skier I am today.
Now, to answer the damn question, though. This 25/26 season, which was objectively “bad” by most metrics, taught me more about who I am as a skier than any year I can remember.
I skied less than I ever have since high school, thanks to shitty snow, a slew of trip cancellations, and an unexpected chronic illness at home that really forced me to reshape my relationship with skiing.
In years past, more was obviously always better. More snow, more days, more lines, more risk, more travel, more adventures…obviously more=better, right? It took a year like this for me to realize that isn’t necessarily always true.
I found much more meaning, purpose, and enjoyment than ever before in every day I was able to get out on the snow. More than anything, it made me appreciate the fact that the journey is the reward. And that journey keeps on going.
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