D1’s friend and husband went to Japan a year ago in January to ski and said it was wonderful.
H and I will probably not hit 20 ski days this year, but the pass is more than worth it for us since it pays for itself after 4 days.
We have been combining our ski trips in the winter with National Parks visits and this year we were able to go to Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches and Rocky Mountain National Park. We skied 6 days this trip when we normally ski 8 or more days, but we had wonderful visits to the parks without any crowds.
Do you tele or randonee/AT? We used to tele when we lived in the intermountain west, and Japan was always a fantasy destination. Now we live in the midwest on a tight budget, sigh. So no more skiing for us. Maybe one day but 'til then I’ll live vicariously.
Two months sounds amazing! H and I were talking on this trip about taking a 1 month trip to ski when we retire. We are different than many skiers we know in that we really like going to new resorts and trying new mountains. I have been skiing Mammoth for 45 years and I love the mountain and know it well. Some of our favorite places now are Big Sky, Steamboat, Copper Mountain and Lake Louise.
My “favorite” skiing tends to on the weather, snow conditions, lack of crowds on roads and slopes. Clear sunny (but not too hot) days with soft groomed snow are great wherever I may be.
It’s nice to be retired and cherry pick the optimum situations. Luckily many resorts have plenty of “blue cruiser” runs, smart to try to retain their aging skier population. The business model of pricey day tickets (ie pushing the season passes)really does deter a lot of younger skiers.
I’m also a big fan of the blue cruisers. This trip we also had some fresh powder which my skis handle pretty well even though they are not powder skis. We found some nice black diamond runs at Winter Park that had some powder that we enjoyed last week.
It’s really relative. There’s no standardization. We skied a double black at White Pass last month that was roughly like the blues at our home mountain. We only found out it was a double after reading the map later. I think it’s because it is treed, and never groomed, but it certainly wasn’t a black or double black in our minds.
I did alpine skiing until I took up tele skiing in my 20s. I thought it would be a quad killer, but it wasn’t! Once I got the rhythm, I found that it was a bouncing motion that didn’t require as much energy as I thought it would. It was easier on my knees and quads than alpine. And falling was much better since everything was floppier.
The cruiser runs are so much more fun on tele skis. It reminds me a bit of what a longboard surfer must feel like. Almost poetic. Free the heel, free the mind
If you have Medicare Advantage, see if your plan has a reimbursement for healthy activities. Mine does and will pay $600 of an activity cost, including a ski ticket.
I’m not so sure about this. I don’t think people who are new to skiing are paying nearly $1000 for a ski pass. Even my kiddos who grew up skiing complain about the cost. In my opinion, a 4-pack or GEMS card, which covers a lot of smaller resorts, is the better value for newbies.
We love the mom and pop ski hills. The kids took lessons wherever we could find the best deal–Winter Park, Copper, A Basin, Keystone–but now we always find our way back to the smaller hills. Cooper in Leadville is our favorite. Cool town, super nice people, two taverns onsite, and short lift lines. My son for sure would die if he had to spend more than 10 minutes in a lift line. Copper Mountain is ~25 minutes away when we want to switch it up.
That Japan trip sounds amazing, @eyemgh! Some good friends moved to Switzerland for the year and we’re trying like heck to get over there and get some turns in.
There are benefits to the small mom and pop places for sure, but our kids want terrain (as much as they can get) and proximity to the condo/rental for naptime if we can do it, since several places haven’t reinstituted childcare since covid. And they forget stuff all the time, so they walk back to the condo to get it! This past year it was poles, a glove, boots, you name it!
Update: It took 3 tries for them to do it right at the ticket office to get next year’s passes ordered, but they finally got it done, so the military passes are purchased. And thanks @twoinanddone for the reminder about getting reimbursed for “wellness” stuff!!
I’m not a skier but my husband and several of our kids are boarders. My husband buys the IKON pass every year. He loves Mammoth and usually does 3 or 4 trips a season. This year he has had some health issues so he deferred his pass till next year. He had also bought a 3 day Epic pass to use up at one of the Tahoe resorts with our daughter. That one was harder to get refunded. He hates crowds and only goes weekdays and avoids holidays. Son in law gets the Epic pass with a military discount but not as good of a deal as @jym626.
They have 3 levels of military passes. They used to have 3 different prices but now the active and retired military (and dependent) passes are the same low price. The third level is called “military veteran”, and costs more. I am guessing that category is for people who served a few years and then got out? Maybe? Seems to me those folks might also be considered “retired”, but I guess not. Also am guessing that current reservists and national guard are considered “active”. Maybe, like DH’s ID, their IDs say “indefinite” and that qualifies for the lowest price point.
I bought an Epic just for the 7 days at Telluride, followed by half-price once you’ve used them. Well worth it! I hit Sugarbush and the Middlebury Snow Bowl back east a few weeks ago. Finishing the season with another Telluride week of spring skiing soon!
My SiL-to-be just got out of the army, but he got a medical discharge. He gets a lot of benefits for life but the one he doesn’t get is to be a permanent resident of Wyoming (no income tax, can’t register his cars there). I bet he’s in the first category for ski passes.
