Shaun White. Franz Klammer. Ingemar Stenmark. Tanner Hall. Larry Olmsted.

Larry Olmsted and Jim Harlan ride to another run.

Crested Butte ski patrol dispatcher Jim Harlan.

Crested Butte ski patrol dispatcher Jim Harlan.

What do these names have in common? And who the hell is Larry Olmsted? They are five of the many people who have skied or snowboarded their way into the pages of the world鈥檚 most famous record book.聽 I am Larry Olmsted, and I currently hold a Guinness World Record for downhill skiing鈥攁 record you could break this winter.

That鈥檚 right, you could be immortalized as that guy (or gal) who broke a Guinness World Record in downhill skiing. You would get a cool certificate. Glory. Maybe even free beers at your local apr猫s haunt.

Breaking my record is not only possible, it not even that difficult. Depending on your skiing ability, you might not even have to train for it. I know this is true because I set the record back in March and I鈥檓 merely a solid advanced skier. Plus, I might know more about Guinness World Records than anybody else, as I literally wrote the book on the book, (Harper Collins, 2008). Having broken or set records for golf, marathon poker playing, and skiing, I鈥檓 not just telling you it can be done, I鈥檓 daring you. Double dog daring you. Break my record, please. Honestly, it鈥檚 not me you have to worry about in your pursuit of fame鈥攊t鈥檚 everyone else reading this story.

My record is for the 鈥淢ost Pistes Skied in 8 Hours.鈥� Translated from Guinness-speak, this means: the most different (repeats of the same run do not count) trails skied in their entirety (you can鈥檛 drop in halfway down) in under eight hours. The trails have to appear on the resort map or master plan鈥攜ou can鈥檛 make them up. Length or difficulty doesn鈥檛 matter. They can be long or short, green or double black, but they have to be different and skied completely. The magic number is 64, the total pistes I skied alongside my co-record holder Jim Harlan on March 7, 2012, at Colorado鈥檚 Crested Butte resort.

This is how we did it.

First I had to pick a mountain. I live in Vermont, but chose because it鈥檚 a 鈥渟kier鈥檚 mountain,鈥� a place where passion trumps fashion. Also, knowing what I do about records I knew it would not last even a single season. In fact, I鈥檇 be disappointed in ski bums everywhere if it has not been broken and re-broken several times by spring. Because of its difficult terrain Crested Butte is hardly suited to a day of racing down as many slopes as possible. You鈥檇 probably have a relatively easy time topping 64 trails at a mountain loaded with groomed cruisers, someplace like Beaver Creek or Deer Valley鈥攊f (ahem) you like doing things the easy way.

Next, I found a ringer: Jim Harlan, the dispatcher for Crested Butte鈥檚 ski patrol. When he was a teenager, Harlan brok his neck diving into a swimming pool and became a quadriplegic but he went on to capture national and world titles in handcycling. He鈥檚 a highly talented mono skier with an intimate knowlede of Crested Butte鈥檚 trails鈥攁n especially valuable attribute when it came to setting our record.

According to Guinness鈥檚 rules, multiple trails can be skied in one descent as long as each is skied completely. Thus, three shorter runs that connect to each other offer more bang for the buck than one longer top to bottom trail. Before flying out to Colorado, I spent hours at home poring over trail maps trying to plot the most efficient game plan for the day, looking for ways to combine multiple trails while avoiding traverses or riding one lift simply to get to another. But once I connected with Harlan, he explained that there are official trails not listed on the printed resort map due to space and type-size limitations. So while my best planning effort had combined five trails in one run, top to bottom, he used the much more detailed patrol map to route a 10-run descent.

Unfortunately, when I arrived at Crested Butte in early March, the resort, like most of the rest of the country, was suffering through the worst snow year in anyone鈥檚 memory. His 10-run route went through the Byzantine maze of short, extreme trails off the North Face lift, which were all closed. Still, his knowledge proved indispensable, especially when it came to that old ski resort trick of padding trail counts by renaming a single trail partway down. Thus what鈥檚 on the map as International officially appears on the resort鈥檚 master plan and on-slope signage as Upper, Middle, and Lower International鈥攖hree trails, not one.

Weather was my biggest worry. I had planned only a two-day window of opportunity as I couldn鈥檛 afford to stay in Colorado forever waiting for perfect conditions. (Ironically, a big powder day would have hurt us as piles of fluffy snow would slow us down.) I decided to pack just one pair of skis to get me through any conditions: K2鈥檚 AMP Rictor, the most versatile all-mountain ski I鈥檝e used. There was a whole bunch of other crap to consider in the detailed planning, from camera and video equipment (Guinness has tons of documentation requirements) to food and drink on the run, all while minimizing stops.

The skiing itself went pretty smoothly except for one mishap that involved a 鈥淭hin Cover鈥� sign and an unplanned foray into the trees. Besides that, the biggest problem, predictably, was my legs. We skied trails of every difficulty level, including lots of high-speed blue cruisers, and we skied them fast. It鈥檇 probably been since I was in high school that I skied first to last chair. Did I feel the burn? Hell yes.

The bottom line is that if you can ski faster than me or have better endurance and are willing to spend a little more time on advance planning, you can break my record. In fact, you might smash it. In better snow conditions we might have knocked off 75 runs. I think 100 is within the realm of possibility for a better, fitter skier. Ultimately the limits are available terrain and lifts. There are a finite number of lifts you can ride in eight hours no matter how good you are, and only a small number of resorts that will have 100 or more trails open.

So I鈥檓 really very curious to see how high this record can go.

BUT FIRST, SOME THINGS you should know about Guinness World Records.

In 2004 I wrote an article for Golf Magazine about trying to club my way into the Guinness book, which at the time I knew nothing about. The record I broke was the 鈥淕reatest Distance Traveled Between Two Rounds of Golf Played in the Same Day.鈥� Teeing off in Sydney, Australia, then southern California, I put 7,496-miles behind me, beating the existing mark by nearly 2,000 miles. Take that Guinness! The story was a big hit and I was a Top 10 Play of the Day on ESPN鈥檚 “Sportscenter.”

Then my friends started asking questions, like 鈥淒oes the Guinness book have anything to do with the beer?鈥� 鈥淲hat are the rules?鈥� 鈥淲hat do you get?鈥� And so on. I realized that everyone knew what the Guinness World Records were, but nobody knew anything about them. So I decided to write a book. Since I had already broken an existing record and the other path to Guinness glory is to set a new record, I decided to do just that. I settled on the longest non-stop marathon casino poker playing session, which I set in 72 hours and two minutes, enduring hallucinations, swollen eyelids, and all sorts of mental issues. And yes, thanks for asking, I was again a Top 10 Play of the Day on ESPN鈥檚 “Sportscenter.” I have it TIVO鈥檇.

I soon learned an unfortunate truth: the folks at Guinness were pretty secretive and maybe even paranoid. When I sold my book, they banned me for life from record setting. A New York Times story on my plight ran under the headline, 鈥�.鈥� It sucked for me, but it didn鈥檛 make the Guinness story any less fascinating.

In 1954, two British executives went bird hunting, and because they were not very good shots, they changed the history of sports, publishing, and popular culture. After missing targets all day, they got into an argument over which was the fastest game bird in Europe, the grouse or golden plover, and made a gentleman鈥檚 bet (both turned out to be wrong).

One of the hunters was Sir Hugh Beaver, Knight of the British Empire, and managing director of Ireland鈥檚 Arthur Guinness & Sons, the world鈥檚 largest brewer. He consulted reference books, only to find that no one had bothered to compile the relative speeds of grouse and plovers. This led Sir Hugh to his ah-hah moment: he realized that Guinness owned or supplied countless pubs full of buzzed patrons facing similarly inane arguments over random questions. He commissioned his brewery to publish a trivia book for bars, and to Beaver鈥檚 surprise, The Guinness Book of Records proved an overnight sensation. It has reached the number one spot on the U.S. and U.K. bestseller lists every single year since without fail, for more than half a century. Today the book (sold by the brewery and renamed Guinness World Records) moves over a million copies annually in this country alone, is published in more than three dozen languages, and with somewhere north of 125,000,000 copies, is the best-selling copyrighted work in human history. By most estimates Guinness World Records is the third or fourth most widely read book ever, after the Bible, Koran, and possibly Chairman Mao鈥檚 Little Red Book.

The book became the final, authoritative answer to all sorts of odd questions, and 鈥渁ccording to Guinness鈥� entered the lexicon. But most importantly, it changed the importance of records and how people behaved. In many ways Guinness World Records was the precursor to both reality TV and the current craze for fracturing sports records with myriad qualifiers鈥攆irst to climb Everest without oxygen, blind, left-handed, youngest, oldest, and so on. It offered a bizarre yet democratic way for people to claim their fleeting moment of fame, and led them to do amazing, amusing, and often stupid things.

There are records and then there are records, the latter belonging to folks like Neil Armstrong, Sir Edmund Hillary, Usain Bolt, and Cal Ripken. The former belong to tens of thousands of Guinness devotees who have pogo-sticked, somersaulted, and eaten their way into the book. People like Geoff Smith, who spent 147 days in a coffin six feet below a pub parking lot, breaking the record for being buried alive that had been set by鈥攚ait for it鈥攈is mother. Or Ashrita Furman, owner of more Guinness records than anyone, including distance walked while balancing a glass milk bottle on your head (81 miles). Or Adrian Hilton, who recited the complete works of Shakespeare aloud, nonstop, over five sleepless days.

Indeed, it is the Adrian Hiltons of the world that keep the book selling. This despite the fact that Guinness has long had an extremely complicated record-setting process as well as a reputation of being insensitive to its passionate fan base. It wasn鈥檛 until last year that they finally streamlined their operation and began repairing their image.

After my book came out and proved not just harmless but supportive, they reinstated me as part of their new feel-good community outreach efforts. If I was not the only person ever banned for life from Guinness World Record setting, surely I was the only one to have a ban repealed. I was back!

NOW, GETTING BACK TO my soon-to-fall record.

Guinness World Records receives over 75,000 record applications each year, and only a tiny fraction end in success. Many folks give up right away, after receiving complex guidelines, rules, and legal releases. Just the 鈥淓vidence Required鈥� document is 18 pages of tiny, legalese print. As Christopher Darwin, great-great-grandson of the famed evolutionist and a record holder himself (for highest altitude formal dinner) put it: 鈥淚f it was easy, everyone would do it. Right now there are probably people down at the pub making wild plans. But they鈥檒l never do them.鈥�

Don鈥檛 be those people.

There are two ways to nab a record: break an existing one or set a brand new one. Both are tricky.

Few know the actual printed Guinness book is a 鈥渂est of鈥� compendium containing far less than 10 percent of all records. This vast omission, coupled with a longtime refusal to index records online, made it impossible for would-be record breakers to determine if a record even existed. For example, you might think up a new record for smashing a piano to bits with a sledgehammer really fast. You check the latest edition of the book and, upon not finding such a record, assume it is fertile ground. Only later would you learn that this record pre-dates the moon landing by years. And even if you knew the current record for piano smashing鈥�97 seconds last I checked鈥攊t is only weeks after your application that you would discover that for every eccentric record, Guinness has very specific rules: the piano must be smashed entirely into pieces small enough to be passed through a 10-inch ring.

Fortunately, as part of last year鈥檚 streamlining efforts, GWR added a searchable online index and Twitter handle () where you can ask about any record and get the description or suggested close alternative record. Still, the truth is that cooking up an entirely new record that Guinness deems worthy is really hard. My ski record attempt was approved only after they turned down my first offer, the most descents of the same trail in eight hours. Why? Who knows?

At the start of the process, you apply online with an explanation of what you are going to do, why it matters, how you will do it, and how it will be measured. Guinness is truly obsessed about this last point. For our ski attempt we needed live witnesses the entire time from an official sporting body, plus video, still photography, a minute by minute diary log book, and affidavits from everyone involved. All of this is a big pain in the ass, and many people have successfully 鈥渂roken鈥� records only to be turned down for imprecise documentation.

Since FIS was unlikely to come observe us, I turned to the . Shout out to Justin Fishback and Nathan Dole, the cr猫me de la cr猫me of the Crested Butte PSIA staff for not just helping out as witnesses but for being good sports and great company (and great apr猫s ski whiskey drinkers!). An extra special shout out to Emily McCormack of Eagle, Colorado, who served as our videographer/photographer/domestique and to her credit skied almost every run with us.

Afterwards I bundled all 鈥渞equired evidence,鈥� including witness statements, video, photos, and trail maps, then mailed it off to London. The record adjudicator came back and demanded the resort鈥檚 data from my scannable lift ticket and a grooming report from our day. (Did I mention they are picky?) Finally satisfied, we received certificates suitable for framing and became part of ski history.

NOW IT鈥橲 YOUR TURN. You have eight hours to ski 65 or more unique, officially mapped trails in their entirety. But other people reading this will be aiming much higher so I wouldn鈥檛 shoot for less than 80. We went for style points and ignored common sense, making several errors that would have given us a higher tally. We don鈥檛 care. We are World Record holders. But if sheer quantity is your goal, don鈥檛 follow our example, since we violated every one of these five key rules:

1. Choose a less challenging ski resort featuring lots of groomed cruisers
The obvious picks would be Deer Valley and Beaver Creek, both known for grooming, with the majority of trails blue or green. Northstar at Tahoe offers fully 73 percent beginner and intermediate terrain, while 65 percent of Mammoth鈥檚 150 trails and almost 70 percent of Park City Mountain Resort鈥檚 114 trails are less advanced. The Canyons offers a stunning 182 trails, nearly 100 of which are not black.

2. Pick your mountain by trail layout and high-speed lifts
Slow lifts and long traverses are your worst enemy, so while Vail has the most trails, getting to and from certain lifts takes a lot of time. Mammoth has a whopping 14 high-speed lifts and 12 of compact Deer Valley鈥檚 21 lifts are high-speed, a better ratio than most other big mountains. Beaver Creek has one of the best percentages of high-speed chairs, coupled with 150 trails.

3. Avoid black and double black terrain, especially moguls
We wanted to ski every type of terrain, including double black, on principle. You don鈥檛 have to. It鈥檚 more tiring.

4. Wait for ideal conditions
If you live at a big ski area this is easy.

5. Don鈥檛 waste time using the actual restroom
Enough said.

Then there are the five things we did that you鈥檒l want to duplicate.

1. Go beyond the printed resort map
If you don鈥檛 have access to ski patrol maps, try the daily grooming report, which typically lists every single trail, including multiples such as Upper and Lower Whatever.

2. Start on top
Rules allow you to begin your eight hours atop the mountain, saving you at least one lift ride.

3. Map the day
Make a plan and start with the greatest number of trails you can combine into single lift rides. Save one trail lift ride for the end, and if you have time left, add these less efficient laps.

4. Think like a beginner
Novice runs at a base learning area count just as much as the steeps off the backside. Heck, you might even get credit for skiing off the magic carpet. And remember, it doesn鈥檛 matter how slow a chair is when it鈥檚 like a hundred feet long! Terrain parks usually count as trails too. You don鈥檛 have to jump.

5. Go big
If you are shooting for 80 trails, don鈥檛 pick a mountain with 80 trails. You rarely get 100 percent open terrain and don鈥檛 want to have to ski chutes, glades or ride T-bars to far removed trails. At bigger resorts like Steamboat, Vail, or the Canyons you can ski half the trails and still break the record.

Your first step should be to log onto and click on Set A Record. Register and follow the instructions. They will send you rules for this specific record. Follow these to the letter! They require a certain number of minutes of video to be shot during every hour of the attempt, so be redundant. I used a GoPro and the battery failed so I eked by with my MinoHD handheld.

Remember, I did everything they asked and it still wasn鈥檛 enough, so it is always better to submit extra鈥攗se a GPS that can be downloaded to a computer and send real-time mapped evidence of your entire day (I meant to but forgot to turn on the GPS). Witnesses are the most important thing: they don鈥檛 absolutely have to be 鈥渙fficials鈥� but this is preferred, so hire an instructor or two for the day. If you go another route use several witnesses, the more the merrier, but they have to witness the entire thing, something hard to do unless they are skiing with you.

Good luck and pray for snow!

The post How You Can Break a Guinness World Record in Skiing This Winter appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

This is a quaint town with seemingly perfect summer weather (June to September can see 100 bluebird days in a row, with temps in the eighties and nineties), a 1950s five-and-dime facade, and a hardcore endurance sports scene. Set on the north end of a 30-mile-long lake offering 200-plus miles of protected shoreline, Coeur d’Alene hosts an Ironman, its biggest event all year. Road cyclists from all over come to ride the 112-mile, up-and-down route to Hayden Lake, while mountain bikers head for the extensive trail network in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. “Lance Armstrong told me this was the best mountain biking he had ever seen,” said Michael Radovan, a local triathlete and salesman.
NUMBERS: Small homes within walking distance of the lake start at $165K.
INTEL: You can rent your place out for more than double the usual weekly rate during June’s Ironman.
ACCESS: Seattle and Portland are five-to-six-hour drives; Spokane is 35 minutes west.

Vacation Homes: Shasta Cascade Region, California

Trinity River, California

California's Class V Trinity River

This vast wilderness playground is perhaps the most overlooked adventure destination in the lower 48. Hard to understand why. The 30,000 square miles contain alpine peaks, serious whitewater, glaciers, and even volcanoes. The main attractions are 14,162-foot Mount Shasta, with excellent skiing and winter mountaineering, and the Klam颅ath River, which has more than 100 miles of navigable rapids as well as exceptional steelhead and trout fishing.
NUMBERS: A cabin on ten wooded acres can be had for $150K. Full-featured homes on 40 acres start around $250K.
INTEL: Siskiyou County has plenty of affordable options within an easy drive of Shasta and the Klamath.
ACCESS: Sacramento (south), Reno, Nevada (east), and Eugene, Oregon (north), are the nearest airports. Each puts you within four hours of the Shasta Cascade region.

Vacation Homes: Ely, Minnesota

The gateway to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which includes thousands of lakes and more than 1,500 miles of canoe routes. The main drag, East Sheridan Street, is lined with outfitters, gear retailers, and eateries. But Ely has a countercultural flair and is famed for its music festivals, wacky Internet radio stations, and eclectic 3,500 residents, including polar explorer Will Steger.
NUMBERS: This is cabin country. Small waterfront places can be had for $200K.
INTEL: Grand Marais, an alternative option three hours east, offers access to both the Boundary Waters and Lake Superior, but prices run about $50K higher than in Ely.
ACCESS: Two hours north of the Duluth airport, four-plus from the Twin Cities.

Vacation Homes: Big Sky, Montana

No, Big Sky is not the billionaire’s Montana. OK, so Ted Turner has a ranch in the area, and two exclusive communities, the Yellowstone Club and Spanish Peaks, are also here. But Big Sky itself is a tiny (pop. 2,200), old-school skiers’ destination with a base area sporting 1970s condos and nothing remotely resembling a “village.” There are never crowds on the slopes, and a $94 combo lift ticket includes access to adjacent resort Moonlight Basin and the largest contiguous ski area in the U.S., with Jackson Hole聳worthy extreme terrain on Lone Peak. When the snow melts, runoff feeds nearby trout-choked rivers, including the blue-ribbon Gallatin.
NUMBERS: Slopeside condos fetch $100K聳$300K. Walking-distance condos start at $80K.
INTEL: The best values are on the mountain, but the really cheap stuff is around the nordic center, seven miles east.
ACCESS: One hour southwest of Bozeman.

Vacation Homes: Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Cape Cod

The Cape has 560 miles of coastline, much of it protected national seashore, and the hundred-plus beaches face the open Atlantic (surfing), windy Nantucket Sound (sailing), and shallow, protected Cape Cod Bay (kayaking). Fishing can be fantastic on all sides, and there’s glorious (if flat) road biking. And, yes, there’s a lot of mini golf. But the 15 towns on this twisting peninsula offer a much less tacky version of the coastal Americana found from Atlantic City to Myrtle Beach.
NUMBERS: Highly variable depending on location, but you can now find simple ranch homes starting at $250K.
INTEL: Two places to find bargains: inland (prices drop just blocks off the water) and close in to the mainland.
ACCESS: The Cape starts about 60 miles from Boston.

Vacation Homes: Lake Placid Region, New York

The Northeast’s best hiking? Check. Sweet road and mountain biking? Check. Alpine and nordic skiing? Check. But you come mostly for the water聴not just Placid itself but 3,000 other lakes, plus thousands of miles of rivers and streams (some offering Class V rapids). The town of Lake Placid sits in the middle of six-million-acre Adirondack Park, one of the largest protected public areas in the lower 48. Canoeing and kayaking are huge here, and larger lakes allow motorized watercraft. If your vacation fantasy includes a vintage mahogany runabout, welcome home.
NUMBERS: Waterfront homes on the region’s smaller lakes start at $500K, small cottages and in-town condos at $200K.
INTEL: “Prices on surrounding lakes are a third less than Lake Placid,” says Robert Politi, town supervisor and a realtor with Merrill L. Thomas.
ACCESS: About two hours from the Albany, New York, and Burlington, Vermont, airports; five hours from New York City.

Vacation Homes: Islamorada, Florida

Not only the best fishing in the Keys, but an honest fishing-and-boating-village aesthetic, with roadside stands that have been pretty much unchanged for decades. You can cast near-shore flats for bonefish and tarpon or troll open waters for wahoo, yellowtail, and mahi-mahi. There’s also wilderness kayaking in lush mangrove forests, great windsurfing and kitesurfing, and arguably our best domestic scuba, in John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, 20 miles north.
NUMBERS: You can get a maintenance-friendly condo off the water, with strong rental-revenue potential, for less than $150,000.
INTEL: Islamorada is both a village and an island group, not a single key, with four “major” islands. The farther you get from town, the more off the grid you’ll feel.
ACCESS: About 90 minutes from Miami’s airport, 45 minutes farther to Fort Lauderdale.

Vacation Homes: East Bench of Salt Lake City, Utah

A true metropolitan city with a year-round mountain playground and arguably the best resort powder skiing in the world. But with abundant hedge trimmers and bike-riding paper boys, this isn’t everyone’s idea of a ski town. Think split-level suburban ranches with big ol’ garages聴which is to say it’s perfect for families or entourages. The East Bench district starts at the base of Little and Big Cottonwood canyons, eight miles from Alta/Snowbird and just a tad more to Solitude and Brighton. “You’re on the slopes in 20 minutes,” says Scott Beck, CEO of the Salt Lake Convention and Visitors Bureau, “but instead of hot wings afterwards, there’s opera, Jazz games, and gourmet restaurants.”
NUMBERS: 4颅5-bedroom homes for $275K聳$500K. Condos from under $200K.
INTEL: Salt Lake’s real-estate slide came late, so the bargain sale is in full swing: East Bench medians are off 6聳12 percent from December 2008.
ACCESS: 20 minutes southeast of Salt Lake City’s airport.

Vacation Homes: Southwest Colorado

If your favorite gear includes avalanche beacons or fat tires, this is your place. While the four counties of Montezuma, Dolores, La Plata, and San Juan make up a tiny slice of the state, they’re packed with some of its best adventures: guided backcountry skiing at Silverton, backcountry ski touring along the San Juan Hut System, and epic mountain biking all over. “My friends in Moab come here to ride,” says Chris Strouthopoulos, a Durango resident and an assistant professor at San Juan College, in Farmington, New Mexico. “That says a lot.” Second-home options range from modern houses on the periphery of larger towns to true ranches reached by dusty dirt roads. Still, you’re never far from outposts like Durango, Telluride, and Montrose.
NUMBERS: Three-bedroom places on 40 to 100 acres start at $500K; rustic homes on smaller lots abound at $200K-plus.
INTEL: The best deals, biggest acreages, and most seclusion are in western Montezuma and Dolores counties, near the Utah state line.
ACCESS: Durango (south) and Montrose (north) both have decent small airports that put you within two hours of most of the region.

Vacation Homes: South Lake Tahoe, California/Nevada

Tahoe offers a rare combination of omnipresent sunshine (three out of four days) and some of the nation’s deepest annual snowfalls (40-plus feet). There’s also exceptional road and mountain biking and, of course, watersports. The trade-off for buying on the affordable South Shore? A strip of minor-league casinos and no real community spirit. But change is coming. A prime 12-acre lakefront parcel of tacky motels was just razed to make way for a parklike village project, and three LEED-certified residential developments are under way. Meanwhile, California’s largest ski resort, Heavenly Mountain, poured half a billion dollars into improvements. “The South Shore is reinventing itself,” says realtor Elaine Casteleyn, of Exclusively Lake Tahoe.
NUMBERS: Entry-level homes on the California side begin at $200K. Nevada prices run about 25 percent more, but property taxes are low.
INTEL: There are great deals in Tahoe Keys, a water-centric development with canals leading to the lake.
ACCESS: Sixty miles west of Reno, 3.5 hours east of San Francisco.

Vacation Homes: Buy or Rent?

The Dilemma

There’s no easy answer聴until now. Respond to these questions honestly and the numbers won’t lie.

How many weeks per year will you realistically be there?

Less than three (聳2)
Three to four (+1)
Four-plus (+3)
A season (+4)

Will you rent out your vacation home when not in use?

Yes (+2)
No (0)
Of course聴that’s why I’m doing this (聳3)

How long do you see yourself owning this property?

Until I can trade up (聳3)
Maybe five to ten years (0)
I’m gonna retire there (+4)
It will go to my children (+5)

When spending big money, you:

Break out in hives (聳2)
Lose a little sleep (0)
Feel like a god! (+3)

Which best describes a dream week at your new pad?

Spending every minute possible outside (聳1)
Cooking big meals and chilling on the deck (+1)
Planting tomatoes and chopping wood (+2)
Framing out the new barn (+4)

Your favorite outdoor gear:

Fits in your daypack (0)
Requires special handling at the airport (+1)
Barely fits in your garage (+3)

What your score means:


6 or under: You should rent

7聳10: You could go either way

11聳17: Time to apply for that pre-approved mortgage

18-plus: This is your third home, isn’t it?

Vacation Homes: Real Estate Tips

Buyer be wise.

[HOMEWORK]

and : For-sale listing, price estimates, and sales histories, plus community statistics, including population, median prices, and recent activity. (Note: Both can be incredibly useful or frustratingly out of date, depending on location.)
: Profiles of popular second-home communities, with links to multiple brokers.
: Site of the National Association of Realtors; offers a wide range of information and tools.
: Local and national mortgage rates, plus tons of financing advice and information.
: Reality check, please.
: Ranks individual addresses and communities based on their walkability.
: The “street view” option lets you virtually drive around, though it can be limited in rural areas.

[STRATEGY]

A coach for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association in the 1990s, David Baldinger Jr. has also been a realtor in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, since 1993. As a top performer at Steamboat Village Brokers, he sells property in a prime second-home market that’s enjoying an $18 million urban-renewal project despite the economic downturn. Here, his prescription for buyers anywhere.

1. Pick Your Spot

Multiple visits is the single most important thing. Get the whole family there in different seasons and weather. Ask yourself, Is it easy to get here? Do I know anyone who owns here? Will I really like it?

2. Pick Your Agent

You want a broker with at least three to five years’ local experience who both lists and sells properties, plus multiple references you can talk to. And get someone in your own age group who understands your needs.

3. Know Your Limit

Have a preliminary conversation with a lender. The most disappointing thing is shopping way above your price range without knowing it.

4. Develop Good Taste

Establishing your own criteria is harder than you think. Everyone does research online, but you can’t appreciate distances or views or features or neighborhoods until you touch them. In a mountain town, everyone thinks they want ski-in/ski-out, but they end up saying, “You mean if I walk two blocks, I can get a garage?”

5. Go All In

Buy the best house you can afford within your budget. Those are the ones that hold value. Don’t buy the “really good deal”; buy the home you like. Chances are the next buyer will like it, too.

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