5 Great State Parks For Winter Sports

13.01.2024 - 21:43 / forbes.com / Winter Olympics

Iconic national parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite are already well known for winter fun. But many state parks also offer a snowy escape. Here are a few of the best.

The mighty Chugach Mountains offer Alaskans a quick and easy winter playground for all sorts of snow sports. The state park that covers most of the range is the state’s second largest — yes, there’s one that’s even larger but it’s in remote western Alaska and very hard to access.

Among the many possibilities are cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, fat biking, glacier trekking, ice climbing, winter camping, ice skating on frozen lakes, and dog sledding. In fact, the original Iditarod Trail ran straight through the park’s glacier-covered backcountry.

Perched along the southern edge of the Chugach, Alyeska Resort in the town of Girdwood is the state’s top downhill skiing and snowboarding location. More than a third of the 73 runs are black diamond, making Alyeska one of the nation’s most challenging places to ski or ride.

Several of the slopes are illuminated after dark for night skiing, and Alyeska also offers the possibility of heli-skiing in the Chugach Range.

There’s not a lot of elevation in the Midwest for downhill skiing and snowboarding. But one spot that bucks that trend is the Porcupine Mountains on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

The park offers 87 miles (140 km) of trails for snowshoeing, winter backpacking or cross-country skiing, plus several snowmobile routes through terrain that averages more than 200 inches of snow per year.

Overlooking often-frozen-over Lake Superior, the Porkies Winter Sports Complex boasts 20 downhill skiing and snowboarding runs, plus three lifts, a natural terrain park, Nordic skiing, fat-tire biking, and newfangled Sno-Go bikes.

This giant green space in Upstate New York has twice hosted the Winter Olympics — in 1932 when many snow and ice sports were still young and again in 1980 when the “Miracle on Ice” took place. More than 40 years later, the town of Lake Placid remains a mecca for many American winter sports.

Herb Brooks Arena — named after the man who coached the U.S. team to their upset of the highly favored Soviets in 1980 — hosts college, high school and peewee ice hockey games throughout the winter, as well as pick-up ice hockey games. The arena is also home to the Lake Placid Olympic Museum, as well as figure skating, speed skating and curling events.

On the outskirts of town, Mt Van Hoevenberg offers recreational cross country and snowshoe trails, as well as world-class biathlon, bobsled and skeleton events. Alpine skiing events at the 1980 Games took place at Whiteface Mountain Ski Area, which nowadays offers seven terrain parks and 87 downhill runs (including 20 for beginners).