Ski Bumming on a Budget
SKIING ON A BUDGET FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS LIVING IN LOS ANGELES
To most, skiing and snowboarding are seen as prohibitively expensive sports. Lots of the time it is, unless you’re the typical upper-middle class family with a Range Rover that goes up to Mammoth for a short stint every winter. A lift ticket is almost two hundred dollars per day. Add rentals, gear, and lodging to that and the cheapest possible weekend trip to Mammoth can be nearly 1000 dollars, out of budget for most young college students.
What if I told you that as a college student you can ride more, for less?
Lift Tickets and Season Passes
To ski or snowboard at a resort, you have to pay to use the lifts. A lift ticket covers a day while a season pass covers a whole season. Lift ticket prices usually are crazy. Days at Mammoth Mountain and Squaw Valley, two premier resorts in California, are 179 dollars, according to the Los Angeles Times. On good days, resorts jack up the prices even higher. When people see snow, they want to ride. On fresh snow days, tickets cost up to 12 percent more even at the local Big Bear Mountain resorts nearby San Bernardino.
One of the reasons for these obnoxious ticket prices is the duopoly that has formed within the ski industry. Two major conglomerates, Vail Resorts and the Alterra mountain company, control more than 50 percent of the ski business as of 2018, according to Powder Magazine. And that number continues to grow.
Mammoth Mountain, June Mountain, Big Bear Mountain Resorts, Squaw Valley, and Alpine Meadows are some of the biggest ski resorts in California. if you’ve spent any time in Los Angeles, these are the places that you’ll hear about from others. According to their website, all of these resorts are owned and operated by the Alterra Mountain Company - meaning they have a monopoly on Southern California’s most popular ski destinations.
That monopoly, however, can be a major advantage to skiers and snowboarders based in Southern California - but only if they take advantage of the Ikon Pass instead of buying the expensive tickets. You might have seen Ikon Pass plastered on a billboard somewhere and wondered what it was. The Ikon Pass gives you access to all of the Alterra Mountain Resorts nearby in one bundle. That means that with the purchase of one pass, you can ski as many days as you want at Mammoth, Big Bear, Squaw Valley, Alpine Meadows, or June Mountain.
Student season passes are where this starts getting even more affordable, especially if you want to ski often. Last season, I bought my Ikon Pass for less than the cost of three days at Mammoth Mountain - just 479 dollars. I ended up getting dozens upon dozens of days on the hill with that one time purchase. If you end up using your pass for just 15 days the average daily cost is less than 32 dollars. And for me, that number was even smaller.
Then comes the gear…
A new pair of skis can be hundreds of dollars. That cost is doubled when you add in the cost of new bindings and boots. Skis, boots, and bindings alone can cost nearly 1000 dollars, let alone the rest of the gear you need. Add in a new jacket, pants, goggles, and a helmet if you’re smart? That’ll be even more, quickly making these winter sports a non-option financially for most.
But the naive (and, richly naive) are the ones who spend anywhere close to that much on equipment. For most intermediate riders, buying gear like that is overkill. A nice used setup will be just as fun and much friendlier on the wallet.
“Many people put off winter sports because they think it’s costprohibitive between kids quickly outgrowing gear, changing styles and the costs to actually hit the slopes. That’s where buying used really saves money.” - according to an owner of several Play It Again Sports franchises
Many of the skis I’ve owned over my nearly 19 years of skiing have been less than a couple hundred dollars. I’ve gotten skis, boots, and bindings from clearance sales on Ebay. While it may not be the coolest or easiest option, being thrifty and buying used pays off. I’ve had the same setup, which has lasted me for several seasons, that’s cost me less than 700 dollars. These are “nicer” items too. It’s easy to go on Ebay and find suitable skis and bindings for beginners that are even less expensive.
A pair of skis for less than 70 dollars on Ebay - almost cheaper than renting for a day.
A buddy of mine recently bought an entire snowboarding setup for less than a hundred dollars. He then used that same setup every weekend at Big Bear for the winter, amortizing out the cost of his gear to just dollars a day. This is much more affordable than paying nearly as much for a day’s worth of rentals at Mammoth.
While purchasing used gear is still a pricey investment, it pays off over time. Most of my gear has not changed over the last several years, even though I’ve clocked more than 150 days on the mountain. For the price of a Starbucks breakfast per day skiing, I have access to all my own gear that I enjoy riding.
Conclusion
Two days of skiing at Mammoth with rental gear and lift tickets adds up, especially compared with buying a pass and cheaper used gear. After two days of skiing that cost a couple hundred dollars each, two hundred dollars worth of rentals, and much more in additional gear, you could end up spending a thousand dollars. Compare this to buying used gear, where you could get an entire setup for under two hundred dollars, and buying a season pass for 479 dollars, as a student you can ski for an entire season for less. Ski bumming on a budget might take some effort, but its worth it in the end.
The average day of skiing up at Big Bear costs me around 20 dollars, if I’m doing the math correctly. Splitting less than a tank of gas (it’s 100 miles to Big Bear from downtown according to Google Maps) between friends makes those day trips all the more affordable. And when avocado toast costs nearly as much as an entire day out on the mountain, it’s a reasonable price to pay for nature’s playground.
Works Cited
Martin, Hugo. "Lift prices rise with snow levels." Los Angeles Times. 19 February 2019.
Brown, Julie. "Get to Know Your New Ski Resort Conglomerate." Powder Magazine. 18 January 2018
The Alterra Mountain Company. Homepage. https://www.alterramtnco.com/. Accessed 13 September 2020.
Paine, Lisa. "Buying Used Snow Gear Can Help With Budget." The County Press. 17 February 2010.
Google Maps. Directions from Big Bear Lake, California, to Los Angeles, California. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/big+bear/los+angeles/@34.1586166,-118.1237679,9z/am=t/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x80c4b38902708765:0xf46d45765fbb53bf!2m2!1d-116.9114215!2d34.2438963!1m5!1m1!1s0x80c2c75ddc27da13:0xe22fdf6f254608f4!2m2!1d-118.2436849!2d34.0522342. Accessed 13 September 2020.
This blog post was really fun to read! I especially liked how you made your second paragraph a single question that piqued my' interest and immediately engaged me. I also liked how you included a quote and an image, which strengthened your expert standing. I also enjoyed the last sentence you wrote and the way you wrapped up the article - it helped me visualize exactly how cheap it would be if I followed your advice. The only piece of advice I would have for you is that we were supposed to have two headlines - one that's really catchy and another that's more informative. I think your main headline here could be used as the sub-headline.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who has always loved to ski, I really enjoyed reading this post! It opened my eyes to how affordable skiing can be. It was very easy to read, but still had a lot of great information and explanations behind pricing. I think adding in total estimated savings by making these changes in your conclusion would be beneficial. Also, if you want to add a third section you could talk about affordable lodging alternatives. Really great job, thanks for the tips!
ReplyDeletethis is a great topic i love to ski and love to be in the snow. you used great information and had it was an easy read. This helped me realize how affordable it can be for students.
ReplyDeleteI love skiing but always remember how expensive the sport can get. I enjoyed that you provided some tangible ways to cut down on costs of the sport and how affordable it can be for college students. When you mentioned that avocado toast is nearly the same price as a day on the mountain, that was an eye-opener for me. I think another way to bring more information to your piece may be to talk about other aspects of the sport that can be cut down: like lodging, transportation, and discounted ski tickets.
ReplyDeleteI love this article Brighton! I used to ski a ton as a kid with my family, but as my siblings and i have gotten older, it has become difficult to get us all together to go. I've gone up a few times with friends, but because I've outgrown all of my gear from when I was 10, it gets so expensive and I end up skiing only one day and finding other things to do for the other days. Being thrifty is so important for our environment, and I tend to be that way about clothes shopping, but not with ski gear because I go so rarely. But, for those prices, I might need to get on eBay soon and make it worth the while. Thanks!
ReplyDeletethis is audrey by the way, I am not sure why my name says "Unknown"
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