On my way back from timberline yesterday I got to thinking: what's the most driving someone would be willing to do for a day trip? We could take the total driving time, divide by skiing time, and the result would tell us just how badly you
needed to ski that day:

SJF = RTDT/ST

RTDT == Round trip drive time
ST == Ski time
SJF: Ski Jones Factor

Being a midwesterner and thus sensitive to the issues of having to ski at, um, "vertically challenged" resorts, I would modify this by adding a height factor:

HF = 1000'/V

HF == height factor
V == vertical drop

so the final formula is

SJF = HF*RTDT/ST

So who has had the largest SJF? For me,

SJF(wgo) = (1000/300)*(6/4) = 5

You forgot to factor in some kind of cost variable. About 13 yrs ago me and my daughter and a friend of mine drove 4 hours to Timberline to ski for about 5 hours and then drove 4 hours home. We did this mostly because they were offering $10 spring lift tics. Also, I had never been there and was curious about the place and it was my daughters first time on skis and I was just looking for a brief ski session (but it was an awfully long day trip).

We live just south of Cols.,OH and drive 8.5 hours round trip to ski 7Springs and Laurel Mtn. (last year). If you want to ski anything decent and live around here you have to drive. I actually did Blue Knob one time 11 hours round trip, that was a little extreme. This weekend we're going with the cost factor and trying the $20 ticket at Wisp, about the same drive as 7Springs.

Welcome to the cornfields, Buckeye Skier!!

Yea I've been in these cornfields all my life. Since our one good Ohio ski area (Spicy Run) closed down I've accepted the fact if you want to ski anything good you have to make road trip. Once I'm out there skiing it's all worth it.

I often ski at resorts about 4 hrs from DC. The longest drive is to Snowshoe. Thanks to Andy the drive is now within about 4 1/2 hrs.