The Ski Town Throwdown is almost over and it looks like the local team will come out on top.
With Nelson close to sharing the impressive title of best ski town in North America with Rossland, Facebook is as abundant with compliments as the ski hill is snow.
“Nelson is the greatest place in the world! For that reason, this paradise will always have my vote!” says Teague McNamara, LV Rogers student.
“Baldface is pretty much the best place ever, even though I live in Bozeman,” says Mike Martins of Perdue University.
“The slopes of Whitewater have been haunting my dreams with those steep pitches full of pow up to my armpits...,” says Vernon’s Josh Woolsey.
“Bozeman is a nice refined American city but Nelson is pure hippie hipster back country draft dodger ski heaven,” describes Spearhead designer Bill Harbord.
On Wednesday morning voting opened in final of the Facebook competition. It’s Rossland/Nelson taking on Bozeman, Montana for supreme bragging rights. As of Friday afternoon, Nelson had almost a 500-vote lead with the tally sitting at 7313 to 6720.
The two local cities, which were grouped together for the purpose of the competition, had already advanced through three rounds of voting — defeating Sugarloaf, Whitefish and Crested Butte — by collecting more votes on Facebook than the competition in each two-day voting block.
Semi-final challenger Sandpoint is home of Schweitzer Mountain and there is currently talk at city council of making the Idaho community a sister city.
There are still two days of voting left so the contest isn't over yet. To cast your ballot for your favourite ski town, go to facebook.com/powdermag and look for the voting link in the page banner. You can only vote once per IP address, per 24-hour period (but if you get your first vote in early, you’ll be able to squeeze in more).
The winner of this round will be known Christmas. The title of best ski town in North America comes with the prize of bragging rights along with a feature article in Powder.