Ski2Live Live2Ski

Had a slight misty sprinkle all day at Shawnee but nothing too bad. Was Blue worse?

Assuming the weather holds out, heading up there with my 2 kids tomorrow. They have a green TTB run, 2 blue TTB runs, and a black run on the bottom half. They rarely get to more then a 5 minute lift line even on weekends, so it should make for a fun day skiing with my girls. Their day 2, my day 5 for the skison. If anyone else makes it out, I am the guy with a tan helmet, black pants and jacket and white poles, with 2 girls in green and purple helmets. Come say hi.

Worked the deli counter at the Wawa at 36th and Chestnut one summer in the mid 80s.

Wish I was there

I try to ski at least one day every weekend, half of those weekends are without kids.

Dream Weaver? Is that Wright?

Ski Barn seasonal rentals! We should carpool sometime when going without kids.

About every word of this applies to me too

My kids are probably a bit past being excited by doing BC regularly. They are comfortable on blues, are doing diamonds at Shawnee & JFBB, and laughed about what passed for diamonds at Alpine.

Midweek is rare for me

Next year they graduate from skiing free at Shawnee under 46" to the 4th grade pass. When they hit 6th grade, they may start skiing less til they get jobs, but I will likely have achieved my goal of making them better skiers than me over 5 seasons by that time :-)

Routine with the kids is basically going to Shawnee where they ski free until they hit 46" (this is probably their last season qualifying). Only other places I went with the kids last year were one day each at Spring (where they have a ski instructor they love), Alpine (not worth the drive for that terrain, won't go back), and BB late season when everything else was closed. What is the best preseason deal on adult and kids passes at Blue?

It is true, it would be nice to have a group to ski with if I went one place a lot. I don't track all my expenses. Tend to spend very little at the mountains though, mostly brown bagging it or maybe buying some chili. Dont like mixing alcohol and skiing. Will usually buy some hot chocolate for the kids.

Skiing with kids takes a lot of effort but it is very gratifying and is getting easier as they get better. About 1/2 to 1/3 the time I ski it is with kids and if I wasn't skiing with them those times I would be skiing less and spending that time doing other things with them. I do work at finding deals, but the joy I get from skiing a wide range of places, based on where I think will have the best weather, conditions and crowds on any given day makes it worthwhile to me. I do pay full fare sometimes, but get enough deals that it averages out pretty cheap. As I have posted many times, those PASR cards that let you ski Blue, CB, JF and Shawnee for an average of $14/day are the real key. I could do 20 days at those 4 places for a total of $315 (including the $30 ski club membership needed to purchase the cards), and get 2 free kids tix each of the 5 days at Shawnee.

I prefer going a variety of places and find good deals a variety of ways including the PASR card, Liftopia, Windham ski club card, Hunter big lift card, Mountain Sports Club, and kids ski free with adult deals. Last year I skied 21 days at 11 different places within 3 hours of my house, and spent a total of $457 which included 2 free lessons and 13 kids lift tickets in addition to the 21 adult tix. Don't think I could have come close to that deal with a season pass, particularly as I do at least 75% of my skiing on weekends. Really the only thing that would make a pass appealing is the VIP line deal at Blue. But I don't love Blue enough to want to do almost all my skiing there.

Don't see LH as that big a deal. It is super slow and does not get you to the best terrain. Only plus is it gets you to some gentle glades when there is coverage.

Might consider skiing in the rain if I was staying at a mountain and had paid for a multi day ticket. Will not drive hours to pay for the privilege.

$40 lift tix

It is 160 ski areas (including Blue Shawnee Alpine & CB in Eastern PA) banding together to try to say they are having the world's largest lesson based on all the lessons being done simultaneously. Really a PR stunt that makes for lots of ski areas offering really cheap lessons on one day to fill their areas on a Friday and introduce new people to the sport. Currently there is no record for multi-site simultaneous lessons and there is a 500 person record for simultaneous learners at one site (which one site could beat cpnceivably this day, in addition to participating in setting multi-site record) Learntoskiandsnowboard.org

I expect they will have lots of instructors and divide people up into groups of the same size as every other day.

I learned to ski at Spring as did my kids. It is a great local place for that in Montgomery County. There is one interesting narrow trail on the far skiers left that opens up only with natural snow.

If folks don't want to wait for Blue, Spring is beating them to the punch by opening tomorrow :-)

Lots of areas are participating in this. It is not just a Blue thing.

Building base on what they can open seems like the best strategy to make it through a warm rainy high traffic weekend and stay open.

PASR cards get me into Blue. But going with kids I would get 3 cards punched at Blue and only 1 at Shawnee (kids under 46" ski free with paying adult), so when skiing with kids my choice is usually Shawnee, and I save places like Blue for when kids are with their mom. But if there is a real difference in how open the two are, I will often hit the better place over the cheaper one. Also there is more that suits their ability level at Shawnee.