Ski deals & discounts for 2015

With weekend / holiday lift tickets topping $80 at many of the large eastern ski areas (Stowe comes in at a whopping $108), it’s more important than ever to find ways to keep skiing affordable. If you’ve got at least some flexibility in your schedule, there’s no need to pay full rate. Listed below are the top deals and discounts I’ve found for 2015. All information is accurate at the time of publication, but be sure to check each ski area’s website for additional details.

Gore Mountain: 12/27/2014

Holiday crowd lining up for Ruby Run

A quick report from skiing Gore on Saturday. The bad news first: rain on Christmas eve and warm temperatures since then have hammered our snow pack. Cold temperatures will return for the coming week, but the chances for significant snow in that timeframe are slim. The good news: trails with snowmaking have retained a decent base. There's a significant amount of terrain available (Gore's trail count is around three dozen). There are some thin spots here and there, but for the most part the coverage is excellent. And if you skied in the past few days, you enjoyed soft spring-like snow and temperatures that were more like late March than late December.

Sleeping Bear

Gore Mountain: 12/21/2014

Winter solstice. First day of winter and shortest day of the year. For skiers, it’s the end of early season skiing and the start of prime time. The best skiing of the year lies ahead of us.

It certainly looked like full-on winter this weekend at Gore. Aided by the 1 to 2 feet of dense snow that fell earlier in the month, trail counts are ahead of where they usually are at this point in the year.

Gore Mountain: 12/13/2014

This is what winter’s supposed to look like. Winter storm Damon delivered, with snowfall amounts ranging between 1 and 2 feet throughout the Adirondacks. Gore reported 14 inches from the multi-day event, but that measurement surely under-reported the amount that fell in the upper elevations. The snow came in perfect pineapple-upside-down-cake fashion, with dense snow at the onset of the storm followed by increasingly lighter powder. As the snow totals mounted, Gore dropped the ropes on a huge amount of terrain, resulting in the best early season conditions in as many years as I can remember.

Whiteface: 12/10/2014

My trip up to Whiteface on Wednesday almost didn't happen. The same storm that brought 1 to 2 feet of snow to the Adirondacks knocked out our power at home Tuesday night, cancelled school for the kids on Wednesday and turned area roads into a white knuckle adventure. Nonetheless, with luck on my side I pulled into Whiteface's parking lot at 9am with 9 inches of new snow on the ground and more on the way.

Gore Mountain: 12/05 & 12/07/2014

Despite a mixed bag of winter precipitation that impacted the Adirondacks on Saturday, I was able to enjoy two of the nicest ski days of the season so far on Friday and Sunday at Gore. Friday was a “professional development” day for me – a rare chance to hit the slopes rather than report to the office.

Foxlair all to ourselves on Friday