Canaan is cheaper than timberline and it’s 5 mins away.

It is mind boggling to me what people pay for private lessons. Ski school all the way.

We have three kids that ski (middle schooler, elementary, and preschooler). The middle schooler is excellent, but still likes to occasionally go to ski school as a splurge. Elementary kid is a level 7.

Other than rare trips to Timberline or Snow shoe, we’ve mostly given up on mid-A skiing. Haven’t skied the North East in years.

We watch flights to Denver out of IAD. Get good deals on flights and rental cars, Ikon passes, and our own equipment. Stay in off mountain VRBOs or hotels, generally close to I-70.

Our biggest expense at this point is ski school.

Thé snow at local resorts here isn’t great, but it also isn’t as bad as you are making out. My kids have done the Whitetrailers program at Whitetail for years. It’s $450 for five weeks and then they ski by themselves before and after. I don’t ski (and my husband often has to work) and my kids learned to ski this way. My oldest is now a junior instructor at Whitetail without ever going out West to ski. We have been to 7 Springs and Hidden Valley and up to NY. I buy their Epic passes in April and we lease from Whitetail for $170 for the whole season. Plenty of people ski locally and don’t travel for skiing. We also sometîmes stay at the Holiday Inn near Whitetail for $140 a night and get in two full days of skiing.

We skied at Whitetail yesterday. It wasn’t great snow, but they still got about 5 hours of skiing in and we were home for dinner.

We love TL. It just sucks there is such limited lodging options.

We ski at TL every weekend. Buy season passes. Buy equipment through level 9 sports. Get 3 years out of it. For lodging we rent long term, but book a few weekends ahead of time. Not holiday. And yes skiing is expensive no matter where you go.

Probably a long shot, but if you have a friend or family member in ski country ask them to buy your kid skis and bindings at a ski swap and get gently used gear for peanuts. Use an easy online calculator to enter height, weight, ski ability, and you know the general length you need. Shipping skis costs like $25 bucks.

Boots are tougher because they have to fit right. But even brand new boots at REI are well under $200.

I have taken my kids to Liberty on school days and paid for group lessons and they were essentially private.

Anonymous wrote:

OP here. I agree. The lessons are just so pricey. We are paying $130 per hour for private lesson.

She’s at a level 4 (maybe 3.5) and she can definitely use a few more lessons.

Private lessons are a bit of a luxury -- group lessons/ski school can be considerably cheaper, depending on the resort. (Although if you are committed to private lessons, WV is waaay cheaper than California/Colorado/Utah!)

Can’t believe it got to page 2 before the real answer - NO! There isn’t.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are truly committed, season passes. It'll pay off within three trips.

The problem around here is that there isn't great skiing. DC is not Tahoe. It's a to-do to pursue skiing around here. Wisp is maybe the best. It has the altitude to get the snow and the cold. But it's a little far for a day trip. Then you have all the other costs.

Liberty sucks. But might be ok for a kid just learning.

The other alternative is to Spring Break it for week out west. 7 days. The kid will learn how to ski. And then season pass things. I think Vail owns a lot of resorts, including out here. I know for military it's extremely affordable, but there must be some kind of family plan that makes it doable.

Having been to Liberty on a cold day after a big dump, I beg to differ. Liberty is a great mountain. What sucks is that it is effectively in the South. Also, their rentals are terrible. But the hill itself is great for a small resort!

The 100 acres of terrain that they have...are fine. They do feel like ski trails.

To pick a random mountain in VT, and far from the biggest, Okemo is 667 acres.

I think this is a big part of why PP is saying Liberty sucks.

NP

Anonymous wrote:I don't think it's truly affordable until you own skis (kids can rent for the full season at local places for pretty cheap) and don't need lessons.

OP here. I agree. The lessons are just so pricey. We are paying $130 per hour for private lesson.

She’s at a level 4 (maybe 3.5) and she can definitely use a few more lessons.

Anonymous wrote:Another tip. You can rent skis for the season from sun & ski for $100. Much better than renting at the resort (and waiting in line for) and then you have them all season and aren’t buying new skis/boots every time your child grows out of them.

Skiing initially is an investment but once your kids get the hang of it lessons aren’t needed and it’s a great family sport and gets cheaper. Stinks the past couple winters have been bad snow wise otherwise you can do whitetail or liberty up and back in a day. We did that often when the kids were little and just did the small slope over and over again while they got the hang of skiing

OP here. I did not know about Sun & Ski rental for the season. I have checked out their website for one day rental and it was more expensive than Liberty (or any of the other Vail resorts) when I do a lesson bundle (with lift ticket and ski rental).

I will check it out for sure. I think I need to just plan better and do more research.

So we ski cheaply. I really don’t think it’s worth skiing around here - bad snow, icy, expensive expensive…but once a year we fly to Utah/Vegas and go to a small ski resort. Kids 12 and under have a free lift ticket, rentals in town are $30/day/skier and the equipment us not painful to use, and we also use airbnb for a place off the mountain so we can do other day trips.

It’s not the same quality of skiing as the results near salt lake or Colorado, but it’s completely sufficient for my family and waaaay better than the east coast. It isn’t extremely expensive. We use points on airfare, Airbnb is about $800-900 for the week, and the car rental is the most expensive thing (like $450 through Costco). The lift ticket is $29-50 for the adults, free for kids, as I said, and that’s about it.

I have taken my kids to Liberty, whitetail, Bryce…maybe good to get them used to the idea but none are a multiple-trip kind of place. Check out the power pass resorts - they are all cheap (https://www.thepowerpass.ski/)

Also, the salt lake resorts have their own deals. For Brighton, I think kids under 10 are free, for example.

Good luck!

I don't think it's truly affordable until you own skis (kids can rent for the full season at local places for pretty cheap) and don't need lessons.

Anonymous wrote:If you are truly committed, season passes. It'll pay off within three trips.

The problem around here is that there isn't great skiing. DC is not Tahoe. It's a to-do to pursue skiing around here. Wisp is maybe the best. It has the altitude to get the snow and the cold. But it's a little far for a day trip. Then you have all the other costs.

Liberty sucks. But might be ok for a kid just learning.

The other alternative is to Spring Break it for week out west. 7 days. The kid will learn how to ski. And then season pass things. I think Vail owns a lot of resorts, including out here. I know for military it's extremely affordable, but there must be some kind of family plan that makes it doable.

Having been to Liberty on a cold day after a big dump, I beg to differ. Liberty is a great mountain. What sucks is that it is effectively in the South. Also, their rentals are terrible. But the hill itself is great for a small resort!

As others have said, do a day trip to cut the lodging (or stay at a Hampton inn or courtyard or something less than 200 and get up early and drive the rest of the way).

Your daughter’s lesson won’t be necessary every time.

Rentals next year will be cheaper per trip because you now know about Sun n Ski.

The real problem you’re going to face is your kids will want to go out west one day. Right now the window price is 250+ for lift tickets, convenient lodging is 400 per night, rentals are 300 per week, etc etc. The NE is better but not by much.

With some planning you can get out west for less, but just be prepared that what you’re paying now, while you can reduce it is the tip of the ice berg.

All in, we are spending 12000 to go out west for a week and we are paying about half the window rate for lift tickets. Prices have gone bananas since Covid. Not sure if we are going to do a trip we’ve done for the past 8 out of 10 years, next year.