I have been coming to big sky since its inception in 1973 when only the Huntley Lodge and Mountain Lodge were here. Even then the skiing was amazing. It expanded lifts every year and became out family's vacation week of choice leading to us buying a timeshare condo week in mid March when the temperatures were best for snow and comfortable skiing especially at the higher elevation lifts. We moved out east in the early 80's and had season tickets to the local slopes and traveled to the Vermont top rated resorts but the lines were intoleratable long (around 1 hour) and the snow was fine icy texture compared to the premium snow in Big Sky. Then we tried Lake Tahoe Palisades but were again disappointed. My son got a job at vail for a season and it was good overall but lacked the snow quality and atomosphere of Big Sky. So it was clearly apparent from actually skiing these areas that Big Sky was above all the rest. I had the chance to go to Whistler and liked the town like atmosphere but the skiing was again not equal to Big Sky. The other factors such as cost of travel are also a toss up for the big US resorts but really only consider the northern Rockies resorts worth spending money to go to. Big Sky is about 50 miles south of the conveniet Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport. Ski rentals and tune up shops are plentiful and cheap compared to the Utah and Colorado expensive resorts. These overall qualities of the Big Sky terrain, consistent predicable snow weather and cool night time activities for singes or the whole family have unfortunately (from my selfish perspective) attracted faster expansion of additional ski resorts and the rich and famous preferred North America ski destination driving prices up for skiing. So package deals are necessary for us regular folk but still -- Big Sky is -- Simply The Best.