This is where I learned to ski when I was growing up and I’m sooo excited to bring this to my family now. It’s no wonder my parents went there. It was so affordable compared to where we live. Plus the skiing is just so much better. It’s called Mont Sutton, Quebec.
We will ski for 5.5 days over Christmas break .Lift tix for 5.5 days for 2 adults and 2 kids (little one is free, and if purchased now) are 697 USD.
16 hours of group lessons (4 days of 2 hours each for 2 big kids) and 9 hours of private lessons and access to daycare all day over 6 days for my 4 year old. Ski school/private lesson/daycare Total of $1015 USD.
Lodging (Airbnb-walk to the lift and ski home) is 879 USD.
We have all of our equipment from ski swaps, so no rentals involved.
As for local skiing, we have 3 resorts within 1.5 hours from us. One is only 45 mins from us. 4th and 5th graders ski free 3 times per PA resort if you sign the up ahead of time and pay $40 processing. It’s not worth it for us to buy a season pass, though.
I caught a deal for 3 trips per person at $149 each. So I paid $447 for tickets for 3 trips (open to close) for me, my husband and 3rd grader. My 5th grader is paid for and my 4 year old will be free.
Bonus if school is closed but daycare is open? I’m outta here. Little one is dropped off and myself and the big kids head to the mountain! I LOVE those days!
Everyone is outfitted now except the little one, I still need a bigger set of skis for him. I have an old pair of skis that are straight and have edgie wedgies on them but I think he will learn to turn on his own this year so I’ll get him a pair of used shapes skis.
I have a total of like, 5 pairs of skis and 6-8 pairs of boots I’ve bought at swaps that the kids will grow into or are using. Sometimes I can get boots as low as $10-15 each at a swap!
It’s important to be the bindings set appropriately though. That’s something I won’t go cheap on. The height, weight and type of skier has to be set by a professional. While I’m there I have them check if they need to be sharpened or waxed.
I pack lunches in a cooler. I ski with a camel pack with lots of pockets and snacks. Each kid has a zipped pocket for a small water bottle and a chapstick. I bring a big Walmart thermos w boiling water and hot cocoa packets, even pack cups.
When we spill out of the van, each kid puts their ski boots on, helmet, and gear (buff, goggles and gloves.) I don’t pay for a locker but find a shelf and know the areas of tables for “packets” instead of “buyers”. In fact one of the resorts has a whole sections for people to bring and plug in their crockpots!
I have a harness for little one. Edgie wedgies last year but hopefully he can do more this year.
What tips/tricks or deals have you found? Where do you like to ski?
I think my answer is I haven’t found what works. I got a handle on gloves/ hats and that’s about it.
We just tried local ski hills. For the 2 beginner hills it is tow ropes and we’ve given up on them. We don’t have mountains near us so these are garbage dump hills basically. The weather is too unpredictable. For example we went 3-4 times one winter and paid for ski lessons 3 times for the kids. Once it was 50 and they still had lessons then it was 70 in February, and they refunded us all. Once the hill was pure ice and the other time it was snowing wet snow and pretty miserable. We are in the Midwest plains so yeah I guess we need Mountains. So I’ve ruled out skiing nearby. We tried snowboarding, and I couldn’t even roll over we just were in our butts the entire time. That ship has sailed for us.
In the Midwest we’ve been to Boyne which had the magic carpet which is nice. Don’t stay on the hill because you hear the machines all night. Stay in the pricier lodge. But if’s a 6 hour drive from us and can be a hazardous drive in the winter. Southwest doesn’t fly there, so we would have to pay for flights. There is a closer resort but again tow ropes which we are like no thanks, nope.
So my plan this year is to do one cross country ski rental at a local forest preserve. Don’t do downhill. We are doing Hawaii for Christmas because if I’m going on a trip I prefer warm. But I will put Quebec on the list because I’ve always wanted to go and it sounds better than the Rocky Mountains for skiing (scary). Looking for easy hills and good weather. DH is more into it than me. I have fun when I go, but it’s so expensive and so exhausting for like 45 minutes of fun. I haven’t figured out how to make it worth it but obviously the daycare probably helps a lot. We might try again but our last attempt our heat went out in our house so we rescheduled with Boyne then even though we told them to reschedule the kids they made us call back, and when we called back they said kids were booked, and they didn’t have room for our kids. So we gave up and lost money on it. Beaches instead lol!
Also we have no equipment. It’s not worth getting if we don’t have good hills nearby. But then of course it adds a lot of money to our experience when we rent. Maybe we’ll try again in a few years.
Not bad campermom, especially over Xmas break! We spend at least that for 2 days of skiing and snowboarding near here - because the two kids’ lessons/lift tickets/rentals for two days are over $1000 total.
I need to get on planning our annual long weekend to Mammoth with our friends for this year. Normally we leave our youngest with my parents, but they’ll be on an international trip instead of coming to visit us this winter. I hope to be pregnant anyway so that would mean I can watch him while everyone else skis and snowboards.
We live in CO about 1.5-2 hours away from most of the big resorts. Vail offers a $129 military epic pass which gives up access to all the Vail resorts for the whole season for almost the price of a single lift ticket. Best deal for sure!
We do the youth equipment swap at a local store. The first year you buy a package for $100 that includes skis, boots and bindings. The next year you bring it back and get a $50 credit so then your stuff for that year costs $50. Pretty decent deal.
We have all the other stuff, mittens, pants, jackets, helmets, gators, etc.
DH and I own our own skis and he has some boards too.
We kept our kids in ski lessons from age 3 until they could ski really well and safely. Now my middle kid skis better than any of us and has to ski with my mom because she needs someone good to ski with! That’s our main secret, we bring my mom every time we go because we need a 1:1 adult to kid ratio. So my mom skis with middle. I (by far the worst skier) either ski with youngest or oldest. DH skis with the other.
We pack lunch most of the time because $10 for a slice of pizza is insanity. And we usually stay up in the mountains overnight when we go because traffic is terrible!
(Local) We are epic now. The military pass is 199 for active and dependents are the same.
Holllyyyyy shizz. I’m looking into this for next year.
Bc we are going away for Christmas, we won’t go to the locals enough to take advantage of this deal but next year it will make sense.
This is timely. Today has been a hard day for me. Veterans Day. I’m stuck taking care of everything for my family while my husband is put up in hotel for months at a time taking care of only himself. I’m torn between feeling selfish and feeling angry. Deals Iike this really do show appreciation and allow our family to “heal” together if that makes any sense. I might not make any sense. I’ve been crying a lot today.
(Local) We are epic now. The military pass is 199 for active and dependents are the same.
Holllyyyyy shizz. I’m looking into this for next year.
Bc we are going away for Christmas, we won’t go to the locals enough to take advantage of this deal but next year it will make sense.
This is timely. Today has been a hard day for me. Veterans Day. I’m stuck taking care of everything for my family while my husband is put up in hotel for months at a time taking care of only himself. I’m torn between feeling selfish and feeling angry. Deals Iike this really do show appreciation and allow our family to “heal” together if that makes any sense. I might not make any sense. I’ve been crying a lot today.
I feel ya! But yeah take advantage of the military epic next year for sure. If you buy it earlier it’s cheaper and then the price starts going up. It’s cheapest in like April for the following year. I think it starts at either $99 or $119. It goes up at some point to $129. Then in mid-Oct it goes up to the full $199 like it is now. The founders of Vail were military guys from a mountain division so they introduced the epic military past last year in honor of the anniversary of the founding of the mountain division.
Hugs campermom. This too shall pass and he will be back home. I’ve only experienced DH being gone 5 days at a time, but it was every week. It’s very hard, and you are still recovering from major surgery.