Ok, so me and the wife were planning on going somewhere over the break and I'll be in Moorefield for Christmas. I was looking all over trying to find the best deals since we kinda overspent this season. I was disgusted at Snowshoe's $63 tickets and checked out Timberline. They have $43 tickets, not bad. Then I looked at Massanutten. My parents have a condo there and I've always wanted to try it out. $61 LIFT TICKETS!!!!! Are you kidding me? They do have Diamond Jim open but come on, 61 dollars. I can go to Snowshoe for 2 extra dollars and have 50 trails and Cupp Run. The one good thing is that you can buy day tickets there for 51 instead of getting open to close tickets. This I believe is the big problem with Snowshoe as a day tripper is that you can't buy just a day ticket and save 10 dollars. You can't ski at night there anyway if you're doing a day trip. Anyway, anyone else think $61 is a bit high for a place like Mass?

JR- that article that was in the Washington Post about small ski areas this weekend. I think they said the average price of a lift ticket in the U.S. is 55.14 or something like that. So Massanutten is above the average by six bucks. It'd be interesting to see what the standard deviation is, but I'm not betting that Massanutten is one of the better places in the United States to ski, period.

One thing to look for is that a lot of ski areas are doing what food stores do: they charge full rate to those who for whatever reason don't take advantage of one of the numerous coupons offered (I'm usually in that category). I'm betting there's some kind of discount to be had if you look around.

On that note, Wintergreen has done something this year that I've thought ski areas should do for quite a while: if you live in one of the counties or towns surrounding Wintergreen and you have proof of residence, they offer a discount from Monday to Wednesday. This is great! Ski areas tend to price themselves for the "big city" crowd and in the process they've priced themselves out of the rural markets many of them are located in. It would be nice to see more resorts start doing what Wintergreen is doing, and perhaps on a more full-week basis (maybe all five days with some "resident appreciation weekends" after Presidents Day when the crowds are winding down and you want to keep people coming in). I think the ticket for locals is 30 or 35 bucks.

Also look into: Timberline has "college days" where any college student with a valid ID can ski for THIRTEEN DOLLARS (WHOO HOO!!!). They're also offering 20% off to any active military personnel all season long. Bottom line: Massanutten probably has some discount being offerred somewhere!

I also think $61 is too steep for Massanutten. You could limit yourself to just a day ticket and save the $10. I try to limit my Massanutten trips to early-season ($30 weekend ticket), or the occasional sneak-away-from-work-on-a-weekday in Jan or Feb....midweek is $37.

I did take advantage of the Timberline 13 dollar College daya few times. The last is the last time I skiid which, according to my coat, was April 2 2004, which was the best day EVER!!! I've always thoght they should offer discounts to local residents. I did take advantage of WV days a few years back at Snowshoe where they offered really cheap tickets to people with WV drivers liscenses. Of course they've gotten rid of that in favor of the full time "Freedom Pass" translated "pay for skiing you don't really want in the evening and let us convince you that you are getting a deal pass".

The bad news is that I graduated college in August and now I don't get Student discounts or college days...or DO I???

Tough to catch a deal during the uber prime Xmas-NY's week. I'm going then with a group on a one day outing to a local area for $38 ea. Best deal I've seen is that Blue Knob six pack offer, must purchase by 12/25 (can do by phone or internet?). May not fit your needs, but $150 gets 6 tics good anytime, incl holidays. Even if you only needed two, you might be able to sell the rest in parking lot (you didn't hear me say that).
Tons of good deals on normal week days, keep checking DC ski bargain tracker. I just remembered that Ski Chalet is offering a coupon in their stores for $5 lift tics any normal wednesday all season for Canaan.

$61 for the Mass of Nothing? I skied there 20 years ago, but with those types of rates it will be another 20 years.

JR - I also skied T-line on April 1-3, 2004. Unbelieveable huh! On Monday, I hiked up and skied down Upper Silver Streak in knee deep plus powder. Epic couple of days!

I ski Massanutten every New Years as my wife's family has a house on the mountain about a mile from the resort. I agree $61 for an extended day is steep, but I wonder how many people going there for the holidays will ski only one extended day while they're there. If you buy a multiple day pass (say 2 days @ $51/day), they give you the right to ski nights free, as their multi day discount. This makes it bearable, IMO as I can deal with 2 extended days for around $100.

I have never skied the nut. On paper it looks about the same size as whitetail. 800' verticla for the expert trials. If anythign I would guess whitetail might ski bigger becuase the cruisers seem longer. How do the two compare?