10 Reasons to Try Skiing This Season

Think skiing's too cold, too crowded, too expensive? These ingenious solutions will have you itching to hit the slopes this season.

Free lessons
Free lessons
Look for midweek clinics, like the women-only ones at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. every Thursday at Mt. Rose-Ski Tahoe in Nevada.
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Heated chairlifts
Heated chairlifts
We've been waiting for this: a warm, cushy seat, complete with a windshield, thereby eliminating the number-one complaint about skiing. No more cold cheeks! At least not at Canyons Resort in Park City, Utah, home of North America's first heated chairlift.
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Luxe dining
Luxe dining
After a while, every après-ski snack in a wood-beamed lodge tastes the same. But pull into the Nest at the Viceroy Snowmass, at the base of Snowmass Mountain in Colorado, and you can sit at the sleek modern sushi bar sipping sake and dipping especially good sashimi into freshly grated wasabi.
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An easy way to beat the crowds
An easy way to beat the crowds
Hop the first chair of the day. We're talking before the mountain opens. At resorts like Lake Tahoe's Squaw Valley USA in California, you can pay extra to have the slopes to yourself.
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Free lift tickets
Free lift tickets
Late sleepers and beginners: At Alta Ski Area, in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah, no lift tickets are needed on the Sunnyside Lift at the Albion Base after 3 p.m. And at Mt. Bachelor in Bend, Oregon, kids under 18 ski or board for free if Mom or Dad buys a multiday ticket.
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Long lines be gone
Long lines be gone
Skip 'em--and cat-ski. Long considered the poor man's heli-trip, cat-skiing has come into its own. Few realize it's not just for double-black-diamond rippers; blue-square skiers can do it too. New outfitter CS Irwin in Crested Butte, Colorado, is a luxe version of the typically bare-bones cat-skiing expe­rience.
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DISCOVER MORE REASONS TO SKI THIS SEASON

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The West's best ski towns
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