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In the late '90s, I was offered an assignment to write for the POWDER Resort Guide. I'd written for POWDER before, but the Resort Guide was different. It was an institution—an annual single-issue that sat on the dashboards of ski bums' cars all winter long. I knew on some snowy highway, that issue would be pulled from the defroster vent by a road-weary co-pilot and used to lay a plan of attack on a new mountain the next day.

With the advent of the Internet, of course, the role of a print publication in helping you plan a ski trip has changed in ways that don't really need to be explained. But while these days you are more likely to reach for your smartphone on those late-night drives than a perfect-bound stack of paper, this issue is still useful in helping you decide where to make that drive (see the preceding 17 pages).

The following 17 resorts recognize that POWDER readers are among the most dedicated skiers in the world. In the last decade, however, we've also realized that we need to do more to match our readers with the resort experience they are looking for.

Starting on this page, you'll notice a small icon that says "Powered by: MTN Advisor." Mountain Advisor is a new website POWDER is launching in collaboration with our sister titles Snowboarder, Newschoolers.com, and GrindTV.com (as well as our summer mountain sports publications, Bike, Canoe & Kayak, and SUP magazines). When it goes live this fall, it will feature, among other things, daily snow reports, current conditions, weather forecasts, and webcams from 400-plus ski resorts throughout North America and, eventually, the world. In essence, this is all the up-to-the-minute information you want when planning your next assault on the slopes. - Derek Taylor