Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow (so we can ski!)

We're now officially a skiing family. And we just got back from a weekend at Bear Creek in PA - great for families and beginners. But we're surpised that more people don't know about renting skis locally and bringing them with you to any mountain you're headed for.

Not only is it cheaper, it will save you time -- literally hours! In fact, on one day at Bear Creek, since the rental lines were so long, they extended their day pass by 1.5 hours for everyone that day just to be nice (I guess so many people complained about the 1+ hours it took to get rentals there at the slope). But lucky for us, we already had our skis from back home. So we just got our lift tickets and hopped on the slopes -- and get an extra 1.5 hours free that day. NICE.

Rentals are cheap and easy. Locally we've been going to Pelican Ski, which is $15/day and they give you an extra day on each side for travel. So if you're skiing ONLY on Saturday, you can pick-up the skis on Friday and return on Sunday for only $15 + tax. The savings + the TIME you save is well worth it since at the slopes, rentals are usually $25 or more ($26 at Bear Creek).

If you rent for the season you'll save even more -- we got our daughter a complete set of skis/poles/boots for only $69 and we don't have to return them till October! If you go skiing only 7 times during the season, that's $10/day!

The other thing that most people don't think about is discount lift tickets. Like everything else, you can get the same thing for less. 3 places to check for discount lift tickets:

• Local ski shops -- i.e. Pelican offers about $10 discount for some local mountains like Hunter, Blue Mountain, etc.
• Local Town/County Recreation Dept -- many local governments sell similar discounted ski tickets to the major resorts.
• Hotels -- just map your route to the slopes and call one or two hotels that are directly on the way (to make it easy for you), and ask if they sell discount ski lift tickets. i.e. One offer for Blue Mountain gave a full-unrestricted ticket from opening to closing for the price of a morning-only ticket. About $14 savings. You don't need to be a guest either to get it. Just go to the front desk and they'll sell it to you (I think they make a few bucks on it too).