I would have to respectfully disagree.
I am a weekend warrior at Mammoth. My wife and I have set our schedules up so that we have a 3 day weekend every other weekend at Mammoth. Sometimes we will head up for a 2-day weekend if it is good enough. When the socal resorts have snow I will get a day in on the weekends I don't go up. It takes about 6 hours to get to Mammoth with no traffic, I typically leave between 4 and 430 in the morning. I would say that in an average month from December through April I spend 25-30 hours driving just to and from Mammoth. My last weekend is usually in mid-May, after that I get sick of the drive and spend my weekends surfing.
Some might see all that driving as evidence of being dedicated, but I lived in Tahoe for 6 winters during and after college. I set things up so that I went to school for 5 years, taking the last two winters off to ski. After that I was supposed to do one more year, but I ended up staying for 4. I am glad I left, despite all the driving I do to get my 40 days a year. I would say the people who live in mountain towns are the most dedicated. For one thing, it is VERY hard to make money in a mountain town, and living is very expensive. For another, there are very few women. Coming from college Tahoe was a shock, I could not believe how few women there were, I have never seen anywhere with more decent looking guys with ugly girlfriends. My first winter I worked in a shop. There was another guy in the shop who had a girlfriend who would occasionally come in and yell at him in front of the other guys in the shop. She was also fat, and thoroughly physically unattractive. He was not good looking, very average, but he was a good deal better looking than she was. I once asked one of the guys in the shop why he was with her. She was ugly and mean, so why the fuck was he putting up with that? He explained that that was just how Tahoe was, and if I stayed I would understand. Mountain towns tend to be horrible places to meet women. The most entitled women I have ever met have been Tahoe women, and it is not even close. I went to college in California and dated plenty of hot sorority girls. I now live in Newport Beach, which is full of hot women who like the finer things in life. The women in Tahoe I met were more entitled that the women I knew in college OR the women I knew in Newport Beach, and it was not even close. To be honest, at least if a woman in Newport Beach had an attitude she tended to be hot. That was definitely not the case in Tahoe. Lots of Tahoe women would act like they were kick back girls who like hanging with the boys. Some of them are, but sometimes it is an act, they pretend not to be high maintenance, but if you don't do what they want you to do there is always the underlying threat that they will just go find another guy. Women in Tahoe get hit on not because they are beautiful or successful, but just because there are not many women in Tahoe. There are some great women in Tahoe, but in general I think the women in Newport Beach are of much higher quality all things considered.
The point is that you sacrifice quite a bit living in a mountain town. If you can make money, and maybe afford to buy a house someday, then mountain towns can be cool, but most people struggle with the cost of living. I might spend lots of time driving, but I get to make good money and live in an area where there are things to do besides ski. In my opinion the only reason to live in a mountain town is to ski every day. That is dedication. If you are living in a mountain town you are sacrificing everything, career, women, standard of living, to devote yourself to skiing. That is core. I get to live 10 minutes from one of my favorite surf spots. I live in a place with tons of hot women, although I'm married now so that does not matter. I make very good money and live in an area with an economy allows opportunity. I might drive a ton to get my 40 days, but I am not making nearly the sacrifice someone who gives up everything to ski is making. I should add that some of the most bitter people I have every met were older ski town locals, although some of them can also be really cool. Locals give up a ton to live in ski towns, or at least the men do. They are the ones who are really core.
And not getting pro forms, I make far more money than I could in a mountain town. I would say the cost of skis for someone who makes well over 6 figures is far less imposing than for someone on a ski town salary, even if the ski town guy gets a discount. 800$ is far less money to me than 400$ is to a ski instructor.
