“The image above says ‘2011’ like I’ve done this for years, but in reality, this is the first edition of such prestigious awards. Unlike other awards, you didn’t have to apply for these, just a judging panel of one (me) made a list of the best and eliminated them one by one until a winner was selected.”

When I think about great ski resort website designs, many come to mind. This year however, two stand out from all the rest. When came down to it, I could only choose one so I’ve got a winner and a runner up (something I think I’ll repeat for the other awards this week since there is just too much cool stuff to share).

However, after much deliberation, the winner is (click play first):

WINNER – BEST WEBSITE DESIGN: Waterville Valley, NH / Joe Myers
http://www.waterville.com/

The reason I chose this design as the best of 2011 was two fold.

First, I think the layout, elements, and combination of colors are incredibly clean and professional. It just looks sharp. The footer uses colors and contrast that are easy to read but don’t pull your eyes away from the meat of the content. Everything matches the brand’s colors, where other sites have a solid landing page but sacrifice design to meet the needs of a CMS or user’s content, Waterville’s design is smooth throughout.

Second, I think the addition of the “Fall” theme is not only clever and innovative, but something I believe will catch on in New England where leaf peeping is so popular. I love giving that “in-between” season some emphasis and it’s own theme. All of the development was taken care of beautifully by Max Kloeppel.

HONORABLE MENTION: Ragged Mountain, NH / Jen Mazzei
http://www.raggedmountainresort.com/

Apparently, the secret to a great site is to live in New Hampshire and hire someone with the initials JM. Some may argue other site’s design elements are strong, but the innovative use of responsive design (resize your browser window while viewing this site to see what I mean) is something they deserve some serious credit for. Great job.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.