Hi everyone... Just thought I'd provide a mini TR after the thoughtful advice from everyone.
We drove up to WP from DIA Monday morning. I'm guessing we were on the slopes by 1030-1100. Against Magi's advice, we ended up parking in the Corona Lot on the MJ side. We took the Super Gauge up and skied down to find out Pano had just opened after being closed the day before. I don't recall official totals but there was about a foot or so in Parsenn Bowl. My son and I broke away from our friends, and he reluctantly dropped into the bowl. He panicked in all the powder and wiped out. He was scared as it was hard to get up... so sadly we had to get back to the groomers. Eventually I talked him back into the trees off Parrys Peak and he performed admirably. Unfortunately, he said he didn't enjoy skiing in the deep powder so that was the end of Pano.
He really enjoyed skiing the somewhat tracked trees on the sides of the runs off Sunnyside. Once we met up with our friends (with the beginner son), they also get this was the best area.
At the end of the day, i boarded back solo over to MJ to get the car, and met them at the WP village (not before sampling some of the legendary bumps). Grabbing them at the village was a total waste since CW is a very mellow cat track. The next day we again parked on the MJ side and skied back to the car together.
Day 2, Pano was closed which was a bit disappointing, as my son's confidence was getting better and better.
By the end of the day we had figured our where and where not to ski. As previous posters had mentioned, there is so much flat terrain at WP. It really sucked at times. The 2nd half of the Vasquez Ridge (Vasquez Flats!) was a write off. Why did they run the lift as far back as they did?! Hi-Lo sucked as did some of the Olympia Lift runs.
Highlights of the day were the runs off Zephyr, Sunnyside, and Sleeper off MJ... which our beginner confidently skied (as I said, he's a very athletic kid and picked things up quickly). All in all though, I'd put WP at or near the bottom of the resorts I've skied in CO. There were just too many flats, and the massive extent of bumps off MJ limited the terrain our group could ski. (On a side note, for all the hype about MJ's bumps, the runs were always VERY empty... It seems to me the resort should think about grooming a little more terrain over there to better disperse the crowds
).
Continued...