Do It Up: Linkification For Skiers & Boarders to Navigate the World Wide Web
Understand Tree Wells: Such a pretty evergreen, with so much untracked powder around it! Well, there’s a reason it’s untracked: Experienced powder skiers understand how deadly a tree well can be. click here for more information.
Gearing Up Cheap: Thinking of going the cheap way to gear up? Click here for some insight on purchasing ski equipment on Ebay. This is our own webpage, included here by popular demand.
Utah-based SkiTrucks is one of the largest used equipment stores in the land. They put together used equipment packages, priced about the same as a yearly rental. And if you’re ever in Salt Lake City, it’s a must-visit.
Racers of all skills and ages should know about New Hampshire based Artech Ski, which has everthing from wax to armor to GS suits to tuning equipment to high-end race skis. As merchants go, Artech Ski is about as reliable as they come.
Another online ski and ski package vendor is Al’s Ski Barn in North Falmouth, Maine. No, you don’t have to visit, they ship all over the country. Excellent deals and service.
Small, Throwback Ski Areas in New England Here’s a site that focuses exclusively on the under-one-thousand-feet club, those rope tow and t-bar areas that give you a huge amount of fun at a very small price. It’s appropriately titled SmallSkiAreas.com.
Lost Ski Areas, Ski Discussion Groups and Stuff
Lost ski areas are ski areas that have shut down and left to the elements. The leading site in this field is NELSAP, which focuses mostly on New England ski areas.
NELSAP has a discussion group, which focuses on lost ski areas but is also an excellent way to keep abreast on skiing news in the Northeast. It’s at SnowJournal.com. If you have fond memories (or even foggy memories) of some long ago slopes in Vermont — or any New England state for that matter — Snowjournal is a must-visit website.
To go really deep into lost ski areas and ski history of the northeast, another site called NewEnglandSkiHistory.com is what you’re looking for. How thorough is this site? Just check out the “cancelled” ski area section, for everything from pipe dreams to under-construction areas that never saw the light of day. Also has significant historical data for fully operational ski resorts.
Other, more intense Discussion Forums can be found at Alpine Zone, which focuses on the Northeast, and at Teton Gravity Research, which has more of a western “big mountain” orientation. TGR also has a great forum for technicians.
A great resource for Mid-Atlantic and Southeast skiers can be found at DC Ski which is full of news and has a terrific regional forum community.
New Yorkers seem to enjoy the best of everything, and when it comes to state-specific ski guides, they’ve got that too. It’s Harvey’s NY Ski Blog which also has an energized forum community.
Lost ski areas of Colorado can be found at this website: Colorado Ski History which is full of great pictures and memories, kind of a NELSAP for the west.
Lost ski areas of Michigan has a small but strong following and a lot of info here at: MILSAP which stands for — you guessed it — Michigan Lost Ski Area Project. Great ski site whether or not you’re a Michigander.
Lift Tickets at Discount: This is a “clearinghouse” of sorts that many ski areas use to raise cash by selling discount tickets in advance, called Liftopia. If you haven’t used this service, it is important to knowfor certain that you are going on a specific date. The deeply discounted tickets must be purchased in advance; generally up to two days out. The sticking point is that some ski resorts only make a limited number of tickets available to Liftopia for any given day, so they might be sold out if you wait too long…so, as soon as you are absolutely, positively sure that you will be skiing on a certain day, click this link to get deeply discounted tickets. I’ve used this service many times, but again, ONLY when I am absolutely certain I will be skiing on a specific date. You need to have access to a printer to print out your receipt, and you have to take identification with you to the mountain. I’ve knocked a third off the price of some tickets. Not every area participates, but it’s well worth checking if you’ve got a date nailed down.