3ft... that's what we get all year here... i live in a freaking bowl... no perciptation of any significance ever drops here... luckily my ski place is in a little bit of a better location. :-)
Being from the east side I can say this: You better not be a little wuss if your gonna ski east... most of the landings at my local mountain are solid ice. Our pipes are crap and the snowboarders make all the jumps so they suck too. Notice how I said My LOCAL mountain... not YOUR local...
Go to overstock.com they always have a couple for a really good price. I picked one up for 80 bucks! not too terrible 8x writes fast enough for me (20 min. burn time for 80 min of music)