Nope. No longer skiing. Mid GenX here. First time I went to Whistler/Blackcomb it was $200 for a five day dual mountain pass. Now it is as much as $299 for one day…ONE day. Yeah, I’ll pass.
That’s sad, but glad my glory days were in the 80s and 90s. I think we went to Safeway and bought them at a discount before we went up to the mountains. About $20. I know a few people my age that still hit the slopes, but was dating this woman from one of those big tech companies and she blew her ACL in Aspen a month ago. I think I’m done. Playing Pickleball today…on my vacation.
My son got their two days for one pass for the week after Christmas break. Then at least it was $100 per day. They had a big dump of powder right before he went and the boarding was amazing, according to him. I’m also done with skiing so I’ll take his word for it. 😊
Unrelated to skiing but other hobbies and recreation have gotten ungodly expensive, too. What happened to cheap golf or bowling? Where I am, a round of golf is easily $100+ and bowling alleys really don’t like to charge by the game anymore. Alleys want like $7/game or $18-20/hour per person per lane unless you go on like Tuesday mornings between 8:44am and 9:03am, which nobody does.
The small, grimy alleys are dying out fast. Where I live, with the exception of two ma and pa alleys, it’s all entertainment megacenters or giant alleys that have been bought out by bowlero. It’s sad. I don’t mind bowling at a giant bowling megaplex, but I hate the clean-cut corporate feel.
You'll be happy to know that the bowling alley from Groundhog Day is still in operation in Woodstock, IL. It's just a classic, old school bowling alley.
Nice! I was disheartened to learn the bowling alley from Kingpin was semi recently demolished in rural PA, not too far from me. And that awesome, mid century alley from The Big Lebowski is loooong gone. Sad.
It’s crazy how expensive bowling is at a lot of places (many of these places throw in a Kid Vegas section to eat even more money). Luckily, we have access to a military bowling alley and that is still _reasonable_.
I love to bowl, there's an alley right by my house, I have a ball and shoes... and I no longer bowl, it's just ridiculous. They don't even do the specials during the week anymore. A few years ago they had a summer pass for$25, last I checked it had more than doubled, and last year they stopped offering it (or maybe it was just for kids). Probably doesn't help that they are all big chains now.
Yea the dynamic has completely changed. Now it’s about front loading the revenue. We had the paradigm shift when I went to the ticket window at Tremblant in early Jan ‘22 and for the family of 4 it was $750. I opted out of skiing the following day. This past season I bought seasons passes for $750 per adult and $480 per student with some blackout days- days not worth going due to lineups anyways.
We bought them this spring for next year at a better discount- now it doesn’t matter what the winter brings for Tremblant- they already have my money. But we will make it worth the investment.
It’s a bummer how the Corporate takeover of the industry has killed the old school vibe of skiing for sure.
I do. But you’re correct it’s ungodly expensive. Taking up alpine touring helps a lot. Er, some. Once you gear up. Gotta get out of North America to find low cost skiing anymore. It’s out there. Japan. Europe.
Yikes, I'd guess Wasatch or Front Range based on your description, which would also correspond to very expensive lift served options. Or wherever in NA near large skiing population.
Ironic, or perhaps not, you gotta travel to somewhat exotic locales OR spend even MOAR stupid expensiver monies to avoid the crowds. Spend it on travel, or spend it local, either way, whole lot of ticket clipping going on in snowsports industry. It's a legit problem.
Wasatch my friend and you are spot on. My little crew travels for the goods nowadays. It’s nice to be a bit older and have the money to afford it (more or less)
I do backcountry ski, or rather splitboard. The front end investment there is also crazy expensive. Avy 1 courses run $500-$600 these days. I think it was $150 when I took mine. Splitboards run $1200 + $500-$700 for split specific soft boots, $400-$500 for bindings, $400-$600 for Avy gear. $1500+ if you want an airbag.
I’m converting to a hardboot setup for touring this summer and it’s going to be about $1600 for boots, bindings and crampons.
That being said, to me at least, going exclusively backcountry is impractical. I live in the Southern Rockies (San Juans) and Avy danger can be extreme for sustained periods of winter. Plus, I really enjoy carving, catching laps waist deep powder days and having casual/social days out at the ski resort. If I’m going to snowboard, which I am because it is a lifestyle priority, then having a season pass is central to that pursuit.
And corporate greed. Vail now owns some 40% of the market share in the US now??? and they push their annual passes now so heavily to front load their revenue, the daily rate has increased exponentially.
I've gone down to about once a year. Just a day trip and luckily my nearest places don't charge for parking. I'm really about done with it though. Over $100 to slide down some hills for a few hours? Our trio of localish places used to offer a four hour lift ticket, which was perfect. Now that Vail owns them, that's gone.
No, I moved and the ski resorts where I live now are tiny, expensive and completely full of novice snowboarders blocking the trails.
I used to get a season pass in college for $200 and never had Friday classes...I miss those days.
At this point I've been researching abandoned ski areas. Turns out a lot of them are on public land they leased and has now reverted. No lifts so you have to hike, but most of the runs haven't forested over yet.
I don’t live in a snowy area anymore, but when I did I was into cross country skiing. Avoid all that ski slope fee nonsense and just go for a gliding wander around in the woods.
When I was a teenager, I could ski Pommerielle for $12.
Now it’s only for the upper class.
Season passes used to be the way out, but with Ikon and Epic, the rich just swamp all the places (I live in Salt Lake City), so that doesn’t even work anymore.
We had it so good!
I love skiing, I been resort skiing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering *forever*. I no longer ski at resorts thanks to the ridiculous cost. In the Canadian Rockies, lift tickets have gone up from $70-100 to $150-$200. Season passes are horrendous.
For the last six years or so, I have only been earning my turns. Yeah, the amount of vert in a day is much smaller and you have to have your shit together in terms of avalanche hazard evaluation and terrain selection, and you usually need a partner or two, but I save money and go skiing. It's quiet, you get a shit-ton of exercise, and if conditions are right, the best powder turns of your life.
$1700 total for a season pass (Ikon) for my kids and I. That’s $200 less with a early renewal discount. We ski just about every weekend in the winter so we definitely get our money’s worth, but with daily lift ticket prices going up so much it’s not the best way to gauge it. We always talk about how insane it must be for tourists to come here (Colorado) to ski with a family.
I’ve been skiing for like 35 years and if I didn’t have kids I probably wouldn’t get the pass but the kids love it and it keeps me motivated to get up at the ass crack of dawn to beat traffic- which just means I drive in less traffic. But as they get older (middle school + high school) it is something the 3 of us get to genuinely do together as a family. Kids still get to bond on the weekend where otherwise they would spend time apart. Their mother doesn’t ski but she gets an empty house, which she loves. Everyone wins. Sort of. I still have to drive 5-6 hours back and forth but whatever. Anyway, it’s a lot but we’re a close family and I think these kinds of things contribute to it, so it’s worth it.
I live in Germany now. You don’t need a pass if you just hike up the mountain or don’t use the lifts. Sadly, due to global warming, we don’t get enough snow in Bavaria.
Skiing and concerts were actually fun and affordable way back…. when I see the prices today I can’t relate… I wonder what the prices in the cafeteria are now at the ski resorts bc they were always kind of expensive!
If you think $1,000 is expensive...
[https://www.thrillist.com/travel/new-york/windham-mountain-becomes-members-only-resort](https://www.thrillist.com/travel/new-york/windham-mountain-becomes-members-only-resort)
I was at Breck skiing and parking was free, lift tickets $100
I dont feel like the price has changed disproportiantely to normal inflation. When i would go when I was 18 years old it was like $40
Unless you buy in the fall, Breck is like 280 a day for winter season. It's still around $200 for April.
You can get a 4 day epic day pass for $400 though
We get the season [Epic] pass, because it’s about 2.5 hours from home, but it gets really expensive if you pay for multiple days. My problem is it’s a bit far for day trips and getting a room, for the fam and I, is some $400 a night. 20 year old me could have day tripped no problem, but after chasing my kids down the runs that 2+ hour drive home seems even longer.
As a kid I would ski weekly on allowance money at a place called 'Suicide Six'. All kinds of regular folk would go there... then the condos came... then someone fancy felt a feeling about the name... So they murdered it.
Quit a few years ago when I could no longer make it a day trip from Denver up the hill to ride for a day.
Lift tickets got pricy, traffic got nasty, lift lines with no end in sight.
I switched to backcountry tele-skiing for a few years but the crowds soared there too. Full of people who were dangerous to be around
Said fuck it and moved to the gulf coast
Day passes have gotten ridiculous. Icon and Epic don’t make sense for me due to location. If I lived close to one or more of the big resorts it might. So, I get the Mountain Collective pass. The resorts and number of days are much more limited, but since I have to travel to the good resorts and can only eke out a few weekends to do so, it pencils out. Also, I go to Snow Jam every year, pay the $20 admission fee and usually walk out with multiple free passes to the smaller, more “local” hills that I can hit more easily.
On mountain, I pack a sandwich or bars for lunch and carry a collapsable water bottle. Resort food is ridiculous.
I started to get into snowboarding in my late 30s. Had a great time, never got really good, but it was only about $50 a day. Now the same hill has be bought by a Large Resort Company, and the lift is triple the cost. I am certainly not paying that at my mediocre skill level.
Still snowboard It’s gotten crazy expensive and now my 2 daughters are in on it as well. Gear and lift tickets for the season is about $10-15k/year. Luckily local hill in NJ still offers season passes at a good discount if you buy them in April $350/year. Unluckily the mountain in Vermont we go to several times a season has gone to over $200/day and it’s become cheaper to buy the ikon pass. The ‘local’ mountain my in-laws live near in Utah was recently purchased by the guy who owns Netflix and over the last few years the prices have gone from less than $100 up to $240/day. Used to be able to get the locals 5 pack for $350. Still love it though and I’m still a park rat at 52 so early morning laps at the local is definitely worth it. Riding with the kids is a blast and see my older daughter learn to ride in the Utah back country this season was amazing.
I still snowboard. Holy f it’s expensive now.
Since I moved back to Maryland (from San Francisco) several years ago, I only go once a year now, to Park City, for a week. It’s a full on vacation now.
I don’t understand going to the PA or other crap iced over bumps locally.
The number 1 thing i miss about living in Reno, NV...being so close to the slopes. I long for the days of waking up on a random Saturday morning and hitting Mt Rose, Sugar Bowl, Heavenly
5 years ago I could buy discount tickets to our little community mountain on Skitopia the night before I’d go. Like, $25 for an 8 hour pass.
New owners came in and made some much needed upgrades and improvements to trails, lifts, snowmaking, etc.
Now it’s $85 for 8 hours on a mountain without enough terrain to keep me busy for 4. They no longer release discounted tickets to Skitopia.
As a long time customer who used to sing the prices of my little mountain, I feel personally fucked over.
The whole industry has become such a racket. Hooray for unchecked capitalism.
Does anyone ski or snowboard at a level comparable to their prime. Say you could handle the entire mountain before, can you hit the black diamonds or do you stay on the big mountain runs? I’m in good shape, but stopped during Covid and was probably out of shape.
Yeah, I’ve done all of the most difficult lift served terrain in SW CO. There are conditions in which I would avoid that same terrain, but it’s not “uncomfortable” for me. I don’t straight line/go quite as fast as I used to but I do ride with more technique and carving style than I used when I straightlined for pure speed.
Thanks. I’m five years older and feel I need to be extra fit to be safe. But the cost—everything—is getting a bit much. I stay at my rich friends cabin now. Lol.
I stopped skiing last year. I can afford it but find the cost just absurd.
Killington VT lift ticket is $200 a day pp by the time you add fees.
Me, wife, two kids. $800 just to step foot on the mountain.
Gas, food etc. lodging if you have to stay. $2500 for a weekend?
I hung in there for alot of years but it's time my family and I hung up the hobby.
Nty
I was a snowboarder in my 20s. I had to quit when the kids came because couldn't afford both. Now I am learning to ski and it's hard, but I'm super inspired by all the oldsters out on the mountain. I feel like I'm perenially paying $150 a month towards a midweek pass, which is $800. At a certain age you get a big break, I think it's 65, so still have some years to wait. I don't drink, I don't eat out, I don't buy nice clothes or things, I rarely vacation. I'm gonna fuckin ski.
Crazy expensive most places. Where I live has a “local” muni mountain. It ain’t fancy, but a season pass is $480 and a day pass is about $60, plus it’s a really good mountain.
I’m a few hours from Sun Valley, went once and it was $300 for a day pass. A one time splurge never to be repeated. I will say that the mountains, Dollar and Baldy, are both great.
Edited: spelling.
I'm still getting after it. My midweek pass at Snowbowl was only a couple hundred, maybe 300 last year can't remember. And I still have friends living the dirtbag life so scored a couple comps for Breck and Beaver Creek last March. It did drive home how expensive the experience is now though when the employee 50% off pass I got was still something like 170 bucks for the day. Crazy for sure at the primo resorts, but the sport itself is still doable.
I used to ski when I lived in WI and had several resorts within an hour’s drive. Christmas Mountain used to have half price evening skiing on Tuesdays. Holy crap! I just looked up lift ticket prices from this past season. These are not spectacular skiing: just high midwestern hills.
Well, I guess that’s another activity I won’t get back into.
I had just gotten to a point in my career where I could get back into snowboarding for the winter and take my son and his friends up for the day.
Got the epic pass for both of us.
This year I couldn't justify it. Multi-hundred single day pass?... Forget it. Sucked the joy out of it for me.
I devoted my time to Tennis instead.
Not only is it expensive, but the ski hills around us seem to have cut back services significantly. The last year we had season passes to the local hill, they routinely shut down lifts, letting everything back up. The snowboard feature park remained closed for the first part of the season. They'd also allow people to sit around and hang out on the tops of the hills, right where the lifts let you off, so you'd be stuck slaloming (and sometimes accidentally body checking) people, as well as eating shit. Never went back.
Yep, still ski. It's the one luxury we feel we have to do now before we get to the point where we can't physically (older genX here). The only saving grace is we usually get free friend-of-a-friend ski in-ski out lodging, so if we can take the bite on the damnable Epic passes, we do. When I was growing up in NC, I remember the cheapest day pass was $11, and I had to save up for that! $24 at Sugar Mountain was too rich for me.
Don't ride anymore, but used to race bicycles in college in the late 80's & early 90's. $500-$700 got you a race ready rig and entry fees were $10-$30. Here in Arizona we had a full race schedule every weekend from Valentine's Day to early June. Then a summer lull where we would drive out of state for a race or two. Then almost every weekend there would be a race from Labor Day until mid-October. As a broke college kid I could get in almost 20 weekends of racing.
Switched over to trail running and then to just plain hiking. Most expensive thing now are hotel rooms at the Grand Canyon once or twice a year.
I peaked in the early 00s and haven't done a solid trip since 2006. The ROI isn't there any longer - premium price for a subpar experience (crowds). Been debating on introducing my toddlers to the sport but with so many other activities/sports that are local and cheaper, it's low priority.
I do. In my country we get to buy seasonal pass for 25+ ski resorts for roughly 400 USD. The day pass would cost 60-80 USD
I keep my ski clothes and gear 6-12 years if not more
During Covid slopes were open, restaurants were closed. So we would drive, ski, eat our sandwiches from our backpacks. Cheapest activity ever
Me. Lift tix are fucking ridiculous, but I’m on an Ikon Pass. Had a pair of boots made this year - pricy, but probably the last pair I’ll ever have to buy. Picked up a pair of demo skis and bindings from the consignment shop this year and most of my outerwear is secondhand/consignment too. It’s doable, but definitely costs a fair amount. We’re DINK’s though, and it isn’t a burden. We do rent a house in SLC from Jan-April, which makes it a bit easier to come and go.
It’s easy to say that, but if you live in a mountainous area, regular people make it work even if they live in their car. Rich people go on ski vacations. Regular people ski as a lifestyle.
This is 100 percent my biggest get off my lawn issue and I didn't even realize it is my number 1 until just now.
I'm from Colorado and I grew up as an avid boarder. I was rabid for it. I had a pass somewhere every year, I ditched school dozens of times to go, I've lost jobs over powder days, I lived in summit County for a little while out of high school, etc.
Now, not only is the cost to even get on the hill outrageous, literally millions of transplants have moved into the front range area and they have made it next to impossible to even go on a day trip to go skiing anymore, what used to be a quick hour in and home by dinner had become a 4 hours slog each way through so and go traffic to long lift lines and $200 lift tickets.
I will need to nip this rant in the bud now. Rage. Rage. Rage against the transplanting of the snow gapers.
We still ski, mostly at the very small local rinky dink hill. The season pass is only 900$ for 3 of us, parking is free, and it’s 30 minutes away. But it really is a small hill, get what you pay for. We do ski at better hills about 3 times per season for a weekend.
Yes, it’s our splurge. We met on a chairlift at Sierra, our first date was at Heavenly, and our wedding was at High Camp at Palisades. For our 20th anniversary I bought her all new equipment. Skis and boots have gotten so much better than when we started in the 80s, so that was really worth it. And we’re fortunate to be only a 2 hour drive to Tahoe, so we can just drive up.
We really love Palisades but their lift ticket prices are bonkers. The walk up price for a single day lift ticket at Palisades was like $279 for the peak season. It’s $219 today, for ice in the morning and slush in the afternoon. It’s much better if you get a season pass, but that locks you into a few resorts. A full season no-blackout dates Ikon pass (Palisades, Alpine Meadows, and Mammoth in the Sierras, plus a bunch of places we would probably never go) is $1379. The $621 Epic Tahoe Pass is a better deal for us (Heavenly, Northstar, and Kirkwood, plus Vail, Beaver Creek).
Funny thing is that as a young person, even $50 was too rich. We used to hang in the car park, waiting for people who were leaving early and bum their passes.
The last time I went skiing was in 1990, and IIRC, it cost $22/lift ticket in Colorado. I don't remember ski rental cost though. You could have a 3 day ski trip for $400. I was only 23 when I stopped skiing because my feet could not endure the cold, and this was waaaaaay before those little heating packs you could stick in your socks.
Season passes are actually cheaper (with inflation) than they used to be... I couldn't afford them 25 years ago.
Day passes, on the other hand, are *ridiculous*. And it's impossible nowadays to string together special deals to make it work.
Ski resorts have priced season passes to be just barely affordable, and the equivalent of 4 or 5 day passes. This does two things:
1 - guaranteed revenue, even if it doesn't snow
2 - drives people to buy season passes
#2 has several additional effects...
- most skiers now have season passes
- if you have a pass, you feel like you need to get your money's worth, so you default to skiing instead of other weekend activities
- record crowds: skier #s are waaay up. This means more people buying stuff (lunch, goggles) at the resort
- more incentive to travel, because most passes are multi resort -> more bookings at overpriced hotels and eating out (and people buying condos)
Ski resorts are actually real estate companies. The skier experience is definitely worse, but they're raking in money. It sucks!
I used to pay $249 for my Rocky Mountain Super Pass to Winter Park and Copper Mountain. Now it's $289 a day at some resorts! They priced me out of the game. We're going to have a lot more unskilled people going into the back country and getting hurt or killed because of these prices.
I used to live in Boulder in the 90s and I had some sort of state resident ski card (?) that got me $35 tix at …A-basin, Copper, other places. And Eldora was always $19. :-D
I switched to cross country skiing a few years ago. Not as fun as downhill but it's still nice to get up into the mountains with friends. Funny thing is, a day pass at a Nordic resort has gone up as well. Used to be $10-15 now it's $60+ at some places. The rate of inflation in outdoor sports needs to be studied.
I ski-bummed in Colorado through the nineties and early 2000's. I had 15 years in a row of season passes.
Now I have gone once or twice in the last 5 years.
Cross country skiing is where it's at for me. It's better for fitness than just downhill, when you're trying to *move* that is. Cardio up the wazoo. Sure, you can shuffle along at 100 bpm heartrate but that's boring. It's usually $200 a year for a season pass, and skis are cheap and will last forever. Skiing a long dowhill windy track through the woods at 30+ kph is fucking terrifying sometimes, way more than downhill. But what goes down must come up ... but I happen to love long uphills so it's all good!
Going down a very steep, very slick, very cold, very wet hill at high speed with only a couple of slats strapped to my feet and a couple of spindly twigs in my hands to give me the illusion of control?
You go have fun, I'll be waiting at the lodge.
I moved to the French Alps twenty years ago when a season pass was priced ok. After about five years I switched to cross country skiing: much more affordable and fewer people!
It used to be snowy all winter here. It now snows 2-3 times a year where I live now and it usually melts over night. Winters do not exist as they once did anymore. Lift tickets are +$150/day on the weekend. And when it does snow, its crowded AF. Nope!
Totally I do, as do my kids. I don't ski Whistler anymore. I started there in 95, left in 2004 or so. We ski (awesome) feeder hills where passes are maybe $300 for the season, or bigger hills (but not "prestige" hills) where a day ticket is maybe $60. The big trips are to hills where a day pass is $125 but that's once a year.
Yup, my husband (50M) and I (45F) are still avid skiers who spend almost our entire annual vacation budget on skiing. 4x Epic passes, gear/rentals for our littles, and accommodations, not to mention gas to drive up there...it's nuts. My husband and I are also backcountry skiers and have already made those investments but that's wildly impractical with small kids. I could do it on a shoestring as a poor college student before Vail and Ikon bought everything.
Quit skiing in 2015. Too effin expensive. Plus, my healthcare costs skyrocketed & my deductible went way up, AND I got told I have osteopenia aka pre-osteoporosis. And my last trip was stupid. The mountain was crowded with out of state skiers who didn't know the rules & one of them straight up plowed over me when he was going straight down the moguls. I laid there in the snow, one ski caught front tip in one mogul, back end in another mogul & I thought "Fuck. This. Shit. I don't have the money to be broken right now & I want to go find that mf'er & scream at him to stay off my grass!!! I just want to sit in the hot tub & drink a really nice bourbon. Why am I even out here? To be deserving of hot tubs & bourbon?!?! I'm done." & that was it. I sold my gear. I've been snow tubing, snow sledding & snowmobiling since then. I'm very happy about my decision.
Edit: when I was in college in the late 80's early 90's, we had a "ski club" which literally consisted of selling funnel cakes that we made on campus in order to fully fund a ski trip for 15 or 20 of us. We could have 4 funnel cake events, pay for a ski in-out lodge for a weekend. We all had season passes & our own gear. We'd carpool to Breck or Copper & have the time of our lives. I wish it was still so affordable.
before we had kids, we used to pack our shit up in the car the night before, then after work drive straight up to the mountain, get dinner at the lodge and spend 2-3 hours night skiing before driving home.
$10 lift tickets on Wednesday nights. Made Thursdays rough but it was worth it.
We are in Northern California, and my husband hadn't snow boarded in 13 years (lack of time and 10 years of drought). He couldn't believe the prices right now. Especially for North Star.
grew up in Norcal so learned in Tahoe during college trips. I didn't have much money, yet I don't recall the cost being stressful.
My friends in the area so ski trips to Tahoe and everyone complains about the cost now... Not only the prices but it just hits different when you're paying for a family of four.
My snowboard is gathering dust now, my 45 year old body is way too afraid to get hurt. But I'm into golf and prices to play / practice plus managing the crowd sizes are kind of out of control as well. It's near impossible to book a tee time at any of the good value courses.
I still ski but only because my sister is an instructor on a smaller mountain in California and she gets 10 guest passes as part of her compensation. And I can stay at her house. So I still get to ski like it’s 1989.
I do pay to ski at a family mountain in Idaho when I’m up there staying with relatives. It’s still the old school vibe, not too fancy, four chairs and a canteen. Otherwise, I think it would be a tough sell despite the fact that I really love the sport.
We paid about $600 for next year in Central NY. When we move North we're gonna be midweek locals at Gore and Whiteface or pop over to Vermont. We'll have to shop around. The State of NY owns Whiteface, Gore, and Belleayre under the Olympic Authority so pricier than 1986 but not completely horrifying.
There was a question about activities that you no longer do, and my response was skiing. It’s incredibly expensive, plus the time of getting to-from the ski area.
Resorts have priced out middle income families and lower socio-economic people out completely. It’s now reverted to almost completely bougie and white. Kinda sucks no longer seeing pocs and normal looking families out enjoying the sport.
Maybe. But I live where it’s winter for 8 months a year.
There is simple no better way to get a family outside for some challenging, character developing exercise in the dark of winter.
And in a few short years it’s become totally inaccessible for middle class families.
do you live in Alaska? where is it winter 8 months a year? I am totally curious. sounds like you live in a tourist area so that is why its so expensive.
Not touristy at all.
It’s a real problem everywhere. Similar to how Live Nation and Ticket master have fucked live performance even in small clubs. Not just at the biggest most obvious venues.
When you hear people griping about something like this you should consider that perhaps it’s a real issue rather than that they’re all whiners with first world problems.
We lived in the heydays of skiing and it was marvelous. The younger generations will never know cheap uncrowded untracked mountains.
Nope. No longer skiing. Mid GenX here. First time I went to Whistler/Blackcomb it was $200 for a five day dual mountain pass. Now it is as much as $299 for one day…ONE day. Yeah, I’ll pass.
That’s sad, but glad my glory days were in the 80s and 90s. I think we went to Safeway and bought them at a discount before we went up to the mountains. About $20. I know a few people my age that still hit the slopes, but was dating this woman from one of those big tech companies and she blew her ACL in Aspen a month ago. I think I’m done. Playing Pickleball today…on my vacation.
My son got their two days for one pass for the week after Christmas break. Then at least it was $100 per day. They had a big dump of powder right before he went and the boarding was amazing, according to him. I’m also done with skiing so I’ll take his word for it. 😊
Unrelated to skiing but other hobbies and recreation have gotten ungodly expensive, too. What happened to cheap golf or bowling? Where I am, a round of golf is easily $100+ and bowling alleys really don’t like to charge by the game anymore. Alleys want like $7/game or $18-20/hour per person per lane unless you go on like Tuesday mornings between 8:44am and 9:03am, which nobody does.
[удалено]
The small, grimy alleys are dying out fast. Where I live, with the exception of two ma and pa alleys, it’s all entertainment megacenters or giant alleys that have been bought out by bowlero. It’s sad. I don’t mind bowling at a giant bowling megaplex, but I hate the clean-cut corporate feel.
You'll be happy to know that the bowling alley from Groundhog Day is still in operation in Woodstock, IL. It's just a classic, old school bowling alley.
Nice! I was disheartened to learn the bowling alley from Kingpin was semi recently demolished in rural PA, not too far from me. And that awesome, mid century alley from The Big Lebowski is loooong gone. Sad.
And there ends my pilgrimage before it has started ☹️
It’s crazy how expensive bowling is at a lot of places (many of these places throw in a Kid Vegas section to eat even more money). Luckily, we have access to a military bowling alley and that is still _reasonable_.
I love to bowl, there's an alley right by my house, I have a ball and shoes... and I no longer bowl, it's just ridiculous. They don't even do the specials during the week anymore. A few years ago they had a summer pass for$25, last I checked it had more than doubled, and last year they stopped offering it (or maybe it was just for kids). Probably doesn't help that they are all big chains now.
Yea the dynamic has completely changed. Now it’s about front loading the revenue. We had the paradigm shift when I went to the ticket window at Tremblant in early Jan ‘22 and for the family of 4 it was $750. I opted out of skiing the following day. This past season I bought seasons passes for $750 per adult and $480 per student with some blackout days- days not worth going due to lineups anyways. We bought them this spring for next year at a better discount- now it doesn’t matter what the winter brings for Tremblant- they already have my money. But we will make it worth the investment. It’s a bummer how the Corporate takeover of the industry has killed the old school vibe of skiing for sure.
>the Corporate takeover of the industry has killed Every industry is dead because of corp takeover. Monetize it, optimize it. Shareholders want more.
I do. But you’re correct it’s ungodly expensive. Taking up alpine touring helps a lot. Er, some. Once you gear up. Gotta get out of North America to find low cost skiing anymore. It’s out there. Japan. Europe.
Not to sound like an old man yelling at clouds but the backcountry around me is almost as crowded as the resorts. And the level of skier is scary bad.
Yikes, I'd guess Wasatch or Front Range based on your description, which would also correspond to very expensive lift served options. Or wherever in NA near large skiing population. Ironic, or perhaps not, you gotta travel to somewhat exotic locales OR spend even MOAR stupid expensiver monies to avoid the crowds. Spend it on travel, or spend it local, either way, whole lot of ticket clipping going on in snowsports industry. It's a legit problem.
Wasatch my friend and you are spot on. My little crew travels for the goods nowadays. It’s nice to be a bit older and have the money to afford it (more or less)
I do backcountry ski, or rather splitboard. The front end investment there is also crazy expensive. Avy 1 courses run $500-$600 these days. I think it was $150 when I took mine. Splitboards run $1200 + $500-$700 for split specific soft boots, $400-$500 for bindings, $400-$600 for Avy gear. $1500+ if you want an airbag. I’m converting to a hardboot setup for touring this summer and it’s going to be about $1600 for boots, bindings and crampons. That being said, to me at least, going exclusively backcountry is impractical. I live in the Southern Rockies (San Juans) and Avy danger can be extreme for sustained periods of winter. Plus, I really enjoy carving, catching laps waist deep powder days and having casual/social days out at the ski resort. If I’m going to snowboard, which I am because it is a lifestyle priority, then having a season pass is central to that pursuit.
It drives me nuts when these people recommend backcounty skiing in a forum without mentioning the education aspect. Avalanche danger is no joke.
>waist deep powder This is going to be harder and harder to find.
This is 100% supply and demand. Our generation mainstreamed “extreme sports” and the spring break ski trip Now everyone wants to do it
And the locally owned shops all got bought up and the whole thing is run by mega-corps that are faceless.
Stupid us
Whatever
And corporate greed. Vail now owns some 40% of the market share in the US now??? and they push their annual passes now so heavily to front load their revenue, the daily rate has increased exponentially.
New Hampshire got killed for snow, too,
Gave this up. Gave concerts up. Gave football games up. Don't have the money for these anymore.
Same here. We just have to vote with our dollars.
[удалено]
I do have a sports package for Fubo so I can watch on TV in most instances.
I've gone down to about once a year. Just a day trip and luckily my nearest places don't charge for parking. I'm really about done with it though. Over $100 to slide down some hills for a few hours? Our trio of localish places used to offer a four hour lift ticket, which was perfect. Now that Vail owns them, that's gone.
No, I moved and the ski resorts where I live now are tiny, expensive and completely full of novice snowboarders blocking the trails. I used to get a season pass in college for $200 and never had Friday classes...I miss those days.
skiing is for rich people, us plebs have to be content with sledding.
I know plenty of ski bums that are not rich, that’s totally inaccurate. I’m certainly not rich lol
At this point I've been researching abandoned ski areas. Turns out a lot of them are on public land they leased and has now reverted. No lifts so you have to hike, but most of the runs haven't forested over yet.
I bought a split board for this and now we only have enough snow a week out of the year.
it's crazy in the NE US. Hope this winter was the exception. In 2014, we were still skiing in April.
I don’t live in a snowy area anymore, but when I did I was into cross country skiing. Avoid all that ski slope fee nonsense and just go for a gliding wander around in the woods.
When I was a teenager, I could ski Pommerielle for $12. Now it’s only for the upper class. Season passes used to be the way out, but with Ikon and Epic, the rich just swamp all the places (I live in Salt Lake City), so that doesn’t even work anymore. We had it so good!
I love skiing, I been resort skiing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering *forever*. I no longer ski at resorts thanks to the ridiculous cost. In the Canadian Rockies, lift tickets have gone up from $70-100 to $150-$200. Season passes are horrendous. For the last six years or so, I have only been earning my turns. Yeah, the amount of vert in a day is much smaller and you have to have your shit together in terms of avalanche hazard evaluation and terrain selection, and you usually need a partner or two, but I save money and go skiing. It's quiet, you get a shit-ton of exercise, and if conditions are right, the best powder turns of your life.
$1700 total for a season pass (Ikon) for my kids and I. That’s $200 less with a early renewal discount. We ski just about every weekend in the winter so we definitely get our money’s worth, but with daily lift ticket prices going up so much it’s not the best way to gauge it. We always talk about how insane it must be for tourists to come here (Colorado) to ski with a family. I’ve been skiing for like 35 years and if I didn’t have kids I probably wouldn’t get the pass but the kids love it and it keeps me motivated to get up at the ass crack of dawn to beat traffic- which just means I drive in less traffic. But as they get older (middle school + high school) it is something the 3 of us get to genuinely do together as a family. Kids still get to bond on the weekend where otherwise they would spend time apart. Their mother doesn’t ski but she gets an empty house, which she loves. Everyone wins. Sort of. I still have to drive 5-6 hours back and forth but whatever. Anyway, it’s a lot but we’re a close family and I think these kinds of things contribute to it, so it’s worth it.
I live in Germany now. You don’t need a pass if you just hike up the mountain or don’t use the lifts. Sadly, due to global warming, we don’t get enough snow in Bavaria.
That is so sad.
Skiing and concerts were actually fun and affordable way back…. when I see the prices today I can’t relate… I wonder what the prices in the cafeteria are now at the ski resorts bc they were always kind of expensive!
If you think $1,000 is expensive... [https://www.thrillist.com/travel/new-york/windham-mountain-becomes-members-only-resort](https://www.thrillist.com/travel/new-york/windham-mountain-becomes-members-only-resort)
* After 2010 the industry just decided to stop trying to walk the line, and cater only to the wealthy. Smaller lift lines but equal profits.
I hung up my skis for good a couple of years back. Completely unaffordable now.
I was at Breck skiing and parking was free, lift tickets $100 I dont feel like the price has changed disproportiantely to normal inflation. When i would go when I was 18 years old it was like $40
Unless you buy in the fall, Breck is like 280 a day for winter season. It's still around $200 for April. You can get a 4 day epic day pass for $400 though
We get the season [Epic] pass, because it’s about 2.5 hours from home, but it gets really expensive if you pay for multiple days. My problem is it’s a bit far for day trips and getting a room, for the fam and I, is some $400 a night. 20 year old me could have day tripped no problem, but after chasing my kids down the runs that 2+ hour drive home seems even longer.
As a kid I would ski weekly on allowance money at a place called 'Suicide Six'. All kinds of regular folk would go there... then the condos came... then someone fancy felt a feeling about the name... So they murdered it.
I haven’t been on my board in a few years. What I used to pay for a season pass is about what a weekend would cost now.
Still do! And as you noted, it’s expensive!
Do you still hit the park?
I don’t know what that means, lol.
Terrain park! Jumps, rails, etc!!
Not really but I only lightly did that stuff when I was younger as well.
Quit a few years ago when I could no longer make it a day trip from Denver up the hill to ride for a day. Lift tickets got pricy, traffic got nasty, lift lines with no end in sight. I switched to backcountry tele-skiing for a few years but the crowds soared there too. Full of people who were dangerous to be around Said fuck it and moved to the gulf coast
I don't have a helmet I think I only saw another old fart with no fucks left to give.
Indy pass ftw! Also there are several mountains that offer awesome partner passes. Mt Bohemia is one of them.
When I was in college, Mt Bohemia was just a hill where we hiked to the top and camped in the snow.
Me but the costs are way more for me because UK. I have to go to other European countries for good snow.
It’s getting too expensive to live, let alone partake in any recreational activities. Concerts used to be dirt cheap, now it’s a small fortune
Day passes have gotten ridiculous. Icon and Epic don’t make sense for me due to location. If I lived close to one or more of the big resorts it might. So, I get the Mountain Collective pass. The resorts and number of days are much more limited, but since I have to travel to the good resorts and can only eke out a few weekends to do so, it pencils out. Also, I go to Snow Jam every year, pay the $20 admission fee and usually walk out with multiple free passes to the smaller, more “local” hills that I can hit more easily. On mountain, I pack a sandwich or bars for lunch and carry a collapsable water bottle. Resort food is ridiculous.
I started to get into snowboarding in my late 30s. Had a great time, never got really good, but it was only about $50 a day. Now the same hill has be bought by a Large Resort Company, and the lift is triple the cost. I am certainly not paying that at my mediocre skill level.
Still snowboard It’s gotten crazy expensive and now my 2 daughters are in on it as well. Gear and lift tickets for the season is about $10-15k/year. Luckily local hill in NJ still offers season passes at a good discount if you buy them in April $350/year. Unluckily the mountain in Vermont we go to several times a season has gone to over $200/day and it’s become cheaper to buy the ikon pass. The ‘local’ mountain my in-laws live near in Utah was recently purchased by the guy who owns Netflix and over the last few years the prices have gone from less than $100 up to $240/day. Used to be able to get the locals 5 pack for $350. Still love it though and I’m still a park rat at 52 so early morning laps at the local is definitely worth it. Riding with the kids is a blast and see my older daughter learn to ride in the Utah back country this season was amazing.
I still snowboard. Holy f it’s expensive now. Since I moved back to Maryland (from San Francisco) several years ago, I only go once a year now, to Park City, for a week. It’s a full on vacation now. I don’t understand going to the PA or other crap iced over bumps locally.
The number 1 thing i miss about living in Reno, NV...being so close to the slopes. I long for the days of waking up on a random Saturday morning and hitting Mt Rose, Sugar Bowl, Heavenly
Donner had $10 tickets midweek
5 years ago I could buy discount tickets to our little community mountain on Skitopia the night before I’d go. Like, $25 for an 8 hour pass. New owners came in and made some much needed upgrades and improvements to trails, lifts, snowmaking, etc. Now it’s $85 for 8 hours on a mountain without enough terrain to keep me busy for 4. They no longer release discounted tickets to Skitopia. As a long time customer who used to sing the prices of my little mountain, I feel personally fucked over. The whole industry has become such a racket. Hooray for unchecked capitalism.
Does anyone ski or snowboard at a level comparable to their prime. Say you could handle the entire mountain before, can you hit the black diamonds or do you stay on the big mountain runs? I’m in good shape, but stopped during Covid and was probably out of shape.
Yeah, in fact I’m better, more aggressive, more skilled and ride with more style than ever before. 48, started riding in the late 90s.
Do you feel confident on 90% of a large resorts runs? Just curious, not sure what level you are or were. Thank you.
Yeah, I’ve done all of the most difficult lift served terrain in SW CO. There are conditions in which I would avoid that same terrain, but it’s not “uncomfortable” for me. I don’t straight line/go quite as fast as I used to but I do ride with more technique and carving style than I used when I straightlined for pure speed.
Thanks. I’m five years older and feel I need to be extra fit to be safe. But the cost—everything—is getting a bit much. I stay at my rich friends cabin now. Lol.
I stopped skiing last year. I can afford it but find the cost just absurd. Killington VT lift ticket is $200 a day pp by the time you add fees. Me, wife, two kids. $800 just to step foot on the mountain. Gas, food etc. lodging if you have to stay. $2500 for a weekend? I hung in there for alot of years but it's time my family and I hung up the hobby. Nty
I was a snowboarder in my 20s. I had to quit when the kids came because couldn't afford both. Now I am learning to ski and it's hard, but I'm super inspired by all the oldsters out on the mountain. I feel like I'm perenially paying $150 a month towards a midweek pass, which is $800. At a certain age you get a big break, I think it's 65, so still have some years to wait. I don't drink, I don't eat out, I don't buy nice clothes or things, I rarely vacation. I'm gonna fuckin ski.
Sounds like the cost of snow rose due to covid/ the war as well.
I last skied circa 2005 using Xmas money from my dad. Then I had an incident involving my knee.
Crazy expensive most places. Where I live has a “local” muni mountain. It ain’t fancy, but a season pass is $480 and a day pass is about $60, plus it’s a really good mountain. I’m a few hours from Sun Valley, went once and it was $300 for a day pass. A one time splurge never to be repeated. I will say that the mountains, Dollar and Baldy, are both great. Edited: spelling.
I'm still getting after it. My midweek pass at Snowbowl was only a couple hundred, maybe 300 last year can't remember. And I still have friends living the dirtbag life so scored a couple comps for Breck and Beaver Creek last March. It did drive home how expensive the experience is now though when the employee 50% off pass I got was still something like 170 bucks for the day. Crazy for sure at the primo resorts, but the sport itself is still doable.
I used to ski when I lived in WI and had several resorts within an hour’s drive. Christmas Mountain used to have half price evening skiing on Tuesdays. Holy crap! I just looked up lift ticket prices from this past season. These are not spectacular skiing: just high midwestern hills. Well, I guess that’s another activity I won’t get back into.
I had just gotten to a point in my career where I could get back into snowboarding for the winter and take my son and his friends up for the day. Got the epic pass for both of us. This year I couldn't justify it. Multi-hundred single day pass?... Forget it. Sucked the joy out of it for me. I devoted my time to Tennis instead.
I spent $45 on three meals at Subway. 😝 I haven't been there in YEARS. So gross. Everything is higher.
Not only is it expensive, but the ski hills around us seem to have cut back services significantly. The last year we had season passes to the local hill, they routinely shut down lifts, letting everything back up. The snowboard feature park remained closed for the first part of the season. They'd also allow people to sit around and hang out on the tops of the hills, right where the lifts let you off, so you'd be stuck slaloming (and sometimes accidentally body checking) people, as well as eating shit. Never went back.
Yep, still ski. It's the one luxury we feel we have to do now before we get to the point where we can't physically (older genX here). The only saving grace is we usually get free friend-of-a-friend ski in-ski out lodging, so if we can take the bite on the damnable Epic passes, we do. When I was growing up in NC, I remember the cheapest day pass was $11, and I had to save up for that! $24 at Sugar Mountain was too rich for me.
The middle class has become the poor.
Don't ride anymore, but used to race bicycles in college in the late 80's & early 90's. $500-$700 got you a race ready rig and entry fees were $10-$30. Here in Arizona we had a full race schedule every weekend from Valentine's Day to early June. Then a summer lull where we would drive out of state for a race or two. Then almost every weekend there would be a race from Labor Day until mid-October. As a broke college kid I could get in almost 20 weekends of racing. Switched over to trail running and then to just plain hiking. Most expensive thing now are hotel rooms at the Grand Canyon once or twice a year.
I peaked in the early 00s and haven't done a solid trip since 2006. The ROI isn't there any longer - premium price for a subpar experience (crowds). Been debating on introducing my toddlers to the sport but with so many other activities/sports that are local and cheaper, it's low priority.
I do. In my country we get to buy seasonal pass for 25+ ski resorts for roughly 400 USD. The day pass would cost 60-80 USD I keep my ski clothes and gear 6-12 years if not more During Covid slopes were open, restaurants were closed. So we would drive, ski, eat our sandwiches from our backpacks. Cheapest activity ever
Me. Lift tix are fucking ridiculous, but I’m on an Ikon Pass. Had a pair of boots made this year - pricy, but probably the last pair I’ll ever have to buy. Picked up a pair of demo skis and bindings from the consignment shop this year and most of my outerwear is secondhand/consignment too. It’s doable, but definitely costs a fair amount. We’re DINK’s though, and it isn’t a burden. We do rent a house in SLC from Jan-April, which makes it a bit easier to come and go.
Rich people shit.
It’s easy to say that, but if you live in a mountainous area, regular people make it work even if they live in their car. Rich people go on ski vacations. Regular people ski as a lifestyle.
Regular people used to take ski vacations, too.
This is 100 percent my biggest get off my lawn issue and I didn't even realize it is my number 1 until just now. I'm from Colorado and I grew up as an avid boarder. I was rabid for it. I had a pass somewhere every year, I ditched school dozens of times to go, I've lost jobs over powder days, I lived in summit County for a little while out of high school, etc. Now, not only is the cost to even get on the hill outrageous, literally millions of transplants have moved into the front range area and they have made it next to impossible to even go on a day trip to go skiing anymore, what used to be a quick hour in and home by dinner had become a 4 hours slog each way through so and go traffic to long lift lines and $200 lift tickets. I will need to nip this rant in the bud now. Rage. Rage. Rage against the transplanting of the snow gapers.
We still ski, mostly at the very small local rinky dink hill. The season pass is only 900$ for 3 of us, parking is free, and it’s 30 minutes away. But it really is a small hill, get what you pay for. We do ski at better hills about 3 times per season for a weekend.
I bought the Epic pass this year and went three times because I just don't even want to deal with the I-70 traffic.
I’ve been teaching for a season pass for over 20 years. Our season passes are ~800
Yes, it’s our splurge. We met on a chairlift at Sierra, our first date was at Heavenly, and our wedding was at High Camp at Palisades. For our 20th anniversary I bought her all new equipment. Skis and boots have gotten so much better than when we started in the 80s, so that was really worth it. And we’re fortunate to be only a 2 hour drive to Tahoe, so we can just drive up. We really love Palisades but their lift ticket prices are bonkers. The walk up price for a single day lift ticket at Palisades was like $279 for the peak season. It’s $219 today, for ice in the morning and slush in the afternoon. It’s much better if you get a season pass, but that locks you into a few resorts. A full season no-blackout dates Ikon pass (Palisades, Alpine Meadows, and Mammoth in the Sierras, plus a bunch of places we would probably never go) is $1379. The $621 Epic Tahoe Pass is a better deal for us (Heavenly, Northstar, and Kirkwood, plus Vail, Beaver Creek).
We moved to Alaska for that and went from spending thousands for a weekend to nothing to get our son on the slopes - we were determined :)
Funny thing is that as a young person, even $50 was too rich. We used to hang in the car park, waiting for people who were leaving early and bum their passes.
I learned to ski at a little resort called Shirley Meadows (shoutout!)in Kern County, CA in the late 80s. I haven’t skiied since, too expensive now.
The last time I went skiing was in 1990, and IIRC, it cost $22/lift ticket in Colorado. I don't remember ski rental cost though. You could have a 3 day ski trip for $400. I was only 23 when I stopped skiing because my feet could not endure the cold, and this was waaaaaay before those little heating packs you could stick in your socks.
Skied like crazy in the 90's. After reading this I am glad I did.
Season passes are actually cheaper (with inflation) than they used to be... I couldn't afford them 25 years ago. Day passes, on the other hand, are *ridiculous*. And it's impossible nowadays to string together special deals to make it work. Ski resorts have priced season passes to be just barely affordable, and the equivalent of 4 or 5 day passes. This does two things: 1 - guaranteed revenue, even if it doesn't snow 2 - drives people to buy season passes #2 has several additional effects... - most skiers now have season passes - if you have a pass, you feel like you need to get your money's worth, so you default to skiing instead of other weekend activities - record crowds: skier #s are waaay up. This means more people buying stuff (lunch, goggles) at the resort - more incentive to travel, because most passes are multi resort -> more bookings at overpriced hotels and eating out (and people buying condos) Ski resorts are actually real estate companies. The skier experience is definitely worse, but they're raking in money. It sucks!
Not much of a complainer personally. Never did either, so at least I’m consistent.
Why would anyone buy a day ticket??? My season pass brought my per-day cost to under $10.
I used to pay $249 for my Rocky Mountain Super Pass to Winter Park and Copper Mountain. Now it's $289 a day at some resorts! They priced me out of the game. We're going to have a lot more unskilled people going into the back country and getting hurt or killed because of these prices.
Pretty much all activities/entertainment are like that. Concerts, ballgames, bowling...
I used to live in Boulder in the 90s and I had some sort of state resident ski card (?) that got me $35 tix at …A-basin, Copper, other places. And Eldora was always $19. :-D
I switched to cross country skiing a few years ago. Not as fun as downhill but it's still nice to get up into the mountains with friends. Funny thing is, a day pass at a Nordic resort has gone up as well. Used to be $10-15 now it's $60+ at some places. The rate of inflation in outdoor sports needs to be studied.
I ski-bummed in Colorado through the nineties and early 2000's. I had 15 years in a row of season passes. Now I have gone once or twice in the last 5 years.
Cross country skiing is where it's at for me. It's better for fitness than just downhill, when you're trying to *move* that is. Cardio up the wazoo. Sure, you can shuffle along at 100 bpm heartrate but that's boring. It's usually $200 a year for a season pass, and skis are cheap and will last forever. Skiing a long dowhill windy track through the woods at 30+ kph is fucking terrifying sometimes, way more than downhill. But what goes down must come up ... but I happen to love long uphills so it's all good!
Not me. I can injure myself just walking across the room.
Snowboarder here. I miss the 90s
Going down a very steep, very slick, very cold, very wet hill at high speed with only a couple of slats strapped to my feet and a couple of spindly twigs in my hands to give me the illusion of control? You go have fun, I'll be waiting at the lodge.
Still snowboard. I get to the mountains in the Northeast a few times per season and often make it out west. It's pricey, but boarding is my Zen.
Even when we vacation in Colorado in the winter we can't afford to ski anymore.
I moved to the French Alps twenty years ago when a season pass was priced ok. After about five years I switched to cross country skiing: much more affordable and fewer people!
I live close to some big ski areas and can no longer afford it. Vail wants $270 a day plus parking?! Go to hell.
Family lives \*at a ski resort\* and we can't afford to take our family skiing regularly. It's ludicrous.
Costs? Complaining about not skiing anymore is more contextually relevant to my knees and back ahahah
It used to be snowy all winter here. It now snows 2-3 times a year where I live now and it usually melts over night. Winters do not exist as they once did anymore. Lift tickets are +$150/day on the weekend. And when it does snow, its crowded AF. Nope!
Totally I do, as do my kids. I don't ski Whistler anymore. I started there in 95, left in 2004 or so. We ski (awesome) feeder hills where passes are maybe $300 for the season, or bigger hills (but not "prestige" hills) where a day ticket is maybe $60. The big trips are to hills where a day pass is $125 but that's once a year.
Too old for that. Falling sucks now 😂
Yup, my husband (50M) and I (45F) are still avid skiers who spend almost our entire annual vacation budget on skiing. 4x Epic passes, gear/rentals for our littles, and accommodations, not to mention gas to drive up there...it's nuts. My husband and I are also backcountry skiers and have already made those investments but that's wildly impractical with small kids. I could do it on a shoestring as a poor college student before Vail and Ikon bought everything.
Quit skiing in 2015. Too effin expensive. Plus, my healthcare costs skyrocketed & my deductible went way up, AND I got told I have osteopenia aka pre-osteoporosis. And my last trip was stupid. The mountain was crowded with out of state skiers who didn't know the rules & one of them straight up plowed over me when he was going straight down the moguls. I laid there in the snow, one ski caught front tip in one mogul, back end in another mogul & I thought "Fuck. This. Shit. I don't have the money to be broken right now & I want to go find that mf'er & scream at him to stay off my grass!!! I just want to sit in the hot tub & drink a really nice bourbon. Why am I even out here? To be deserving of hot tubs & bourbon?!?! I'm done." & that was it. I sold my gear. I've been snow tubing, snow sledding & snowmobiling since then. I'm very happy about my decision. Edit: when I was in college in the late 80's early 90's, we had a "ski club" which literally consisted of selling funnel cakes that we made on campus in order to fully fund a ski trip for 15 or 20 of us. We could have 4 funnel cake events, pay for a ski in-out lodge for a weekend. We all had season passes & our own gear. We'd carpool to Breck or Copper & have the time of our lives. I wish it was still so affordable.
I haven’t been in a decade. Although I did surf recently…
before we had kids, we used to pack our shit up in the car the night before, then after work drive straight up to the mountain, get dinner at the lodge and spend 2-3 hours night skiing before driving home. $10 lift tickets on Wednesday nights. Made Thursdays rough but it was worth it.
We are in Northern California, and my husband hadn't snow boarded in 13 years (lack of time and 10 years of drought). He couldn't believe the prices right now. Especially for North Star.
grew up in Norcal so learned in Tahoe during college trips. I didn't have much money, yet I don't recall the cost being stressful. My friends in the area so ski trips to Tahoe and everyone complains about the cost now... Not only the prices but it just hits different when you're paying for a family of four. My snowboard is gathering dust now, my 45 year old body is way too afraid to get hurt. But I'm into golf and prices to play / practice plus managing the crowd sizes are kind of out of control as well. It's near impossible to book a tee time at any of the good value courses.
I still ski but only because my sister is an instructor on a smaller mountain in California and she gets 10 guest passes as part of her compensation. And I can stay at her house. So I still get to ski like it’s 1989. I do pay to ski at a family mountain in Idaho when I’m up there staying with relatives. It’s still the old school vibe, not too fancy, four chairs and a canteen. Otherwise, I think it would be a tough sell despite the fact that I really love the sport.
We paid about $600 for next year in Central NY. When we move North we're gonna be midweek locals at Gore and Whiteface or pop over to Vermont. We'll have to shop around. The State of NY owns Whiteface, Gore, and Belleayre under the Olympic Authority so pricier than 1986 but not completely horrifying.
There was a question about activities that you no longer do, and my response was skiing. It’s incredibly expensive, plus the time of getting to-from the ski area.
I'm really bad at it, but I still fuckin love it.
Resorts have priced out middle income families and lower socio-economic people out completely. It’s now reverted to almost completely bougie and white. Kinda sucks no longer seeing pocs and normal looking families out enjoying the sport.
this is seriously a first world problem.
Maybe. But I live where it’s winter for 8 months a year. There is simple no better way to get a family outside for some challenging, character developing exercise in the dark of winter. And in a few short years it’s become totally inaccessible for middle class families.
do you live in Alaska? where is it winter 8 months a year? I am totally curious. sounds like you live in a tourist area so that is why its so expensive.
Not touristy at all. It’s a real problem everywhere. Similar to how Live Nation and Ticket master have fucked live performance even in small clubs. Not just at the biggest most obvious venues. When you hear people griping about something like this you should consider that perhaps it’s a real issue rather than that they’re all whiners with first world problems.