4. Ski in Europe

Vermont has been my go-to spot since I took up skiing a few years ago. Living on the East Coast, there's a huge loyalty to the Northeast skiing, with it's ice, freezing cold days, and relatively small summits. So this year, having been working on skiing for a few years, I wanted to head further afield to both Europe and "out West" in the US.

For Europe, I picked Chamonix. Little did I know at the time it was the "Alpinism Capital of the World", but in the weeks leading up to the trip, as my friends and I were doing research (and texting back and forth links to various Instagram accounts), we realized we were in for a real treat. Chamonix's terrain lived up to the reputation even though it's weather didn't (we saw only a few inches of snow on top of a relatively hard packed but not all that deep base).