I grew up snowboarding Roundtop and it's sister Ski Liberty without having truly experienced real powder. As a kid, it was easy to believe that snow-making was just a part of all ski resorts, and it didn't occur to me that bigger mountains don't need them. Then I went out to Lake Tahoe, and it was nothing short of magical. The night I arrived, the skies blanketed the mountains with two feet of fresh powder. Cruising through the trees that next morning in the real snow is something I'll never forget.

Still, there was something about riding a slow chairlift up my small, local mountains with the freezing wind whipping your numb face, and then getting blasted with icy man-made snow as your chair glides through the path of a snowblower.