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[quote=Anonymous]My kids love to ski out west and so we try to go a couple times a year. To keep the costs down it helps me to mentally think of these as ski trips and not vacations. We are paying to do a sport - same way other families pay for travel soccer clinics. Here are a few specific tips I use:

1) take advantage of credit card miles. We have a southwest card and a companion pass and are also willing to deal with connections for longer trips to keep the price down. Delta has great DCA-SLC flights but we never take them because they are too expensive.
2) get a cheaper pass. Epic can be a good deal if you like the Vail resorts. I don't so we get the Mountain Collective pass, which is about $750 for adults. Ikon is a good deal if your kids are under 12. Or some mountains have good ideas if you buy ahead - Winter Park for example has a deal with 4 days of lift tickets for $400 - you could combine that with a day at Granby Ranch, which is also about $100/day.
3) Don't stay ski in/ski out - we stay in the Salt Lake City exurbs and drive to the mountain each day - it is less relaxing but much cheaper. If the road to Alta/Snowbird is closed, we ski at Snowbasin that day. if you stay at Winter Park, stay on the access road and park at Mary Jane.
4) We buy and resell used equipment for the kids.

Even when we had the Ikon pass we never skied at Snowshoe because the lodging there is pretty expensive and the drive is long so it never seemed worth it, but YMMV.[/quote]

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