Saturday, February 7, 2015

Travelling to snow on the cheap









We have been selling a lot of bags lately. It seems that the customers are willing to travel to find good snow. And traveling to Tahoe has not gotten the job done lately. So our customers are flying all over. Employees too. John just spent 5 days at Jackson Hole and Erik was at Copper Mountain in Colorado this week. 

Basically people want to follow the snow. So how much would it cost to go out of state to ski?

I thought I would do some research...

Where is the snow? Utah has some good snow, and I have gone there enough to know it is pretty cheap and easy.

I like to ski at both Deer valley and Squaw Valley. Both are great. Utah is more exotic and Deer Valley has won the award as best resort in North America 3 of the last 5 years in Ski Magazine. Plus Utah has had better snow this year. Actually it almost always has better snow- it is right on the License plates- they say "greatest snow on earth"!

So exactly how much more would it cost to go to ski Deer Valley for a day? I Picked March 18th as a good day because I have that day off and I looked it up. 

Deer Valley
Transportation:
Southwest Airlines leaves Oakland at 6am on 3/18/15 and arrives at 8:45 for just $49
Southwest leaves for home at 8:10pm so I can have dinner before I leave. It arrives at 9:05 for $59
All Resorts Express charges $90 round trip to take you to the resort of your choice.
Lift ticket is Free with a boarding pass from the same day through SkiUtah.com or go to
Total ski cost $0
Total transportation cost $198
Total cost is $198

Squaw Valley
Transportation:
Leave at  6am and it is a three hour drive covering 183 miles each way.
Eat Dinner and leave Squaw at 6:00pm and you are home at 9:00pm.
 At 20 miles per gallon it is 18.3 gallons of gas. Assuming $3 per gallon that runs $54.90 for fuel
(Using Federal Guidelines of .575 per mile reimbursement cost it is $210.45)
Lift Ticket bought with at least a two day advance is $95 ($24 savings from "at the window")
Total cost is $149.90 with just gas at $3 per gallon)


So you can see it is not that much more to go skiing in Utah.
And you leave and arrive home at about the same time depending upon where you live.

I looked up Lodging and the Yarrow hotel is $139 in Park City Utah. Squaw Valley lodge starts at $159
So a second day is not too much more either!

Something to think about... and if you have other travel tips or ideas let us know so we can pass them on!

Diect link to the free pass at Deer Valley:
http://www.skiutah.com/blog/authors/eric/how-about-a-free-lift-pass-to-park-city-the-canyons-or-deer-valley 

All Resorts Transportation_ http://allresort.com/

Squaw tickets and lodging- http://squawalpine.com/