This is my year to see if skiing can be affordable. Indy Pass is my chosen method for 2025 to 2026
I remember the days when we tried to make sure we got our per run cost down below a dollar a run. Those days are long gone, well….. maybe. I know it is gone at any ski area of any real size, definitely if described as a Vail Resorts Management Company.
A weekday ticket at Stowe in December is $209. Hunter Mountain in New York is $113 on weekdays and $134 on the weekend. Where can a sane person go for a cheap day of skiing? The only way seems to be season passes at one location. But what about casual skiers? They don’t seem to exist anymore. How can you try the sport without breaking the bank?
Well, the cheapest that I’ve heard is Storrs Hill Ski Area in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Thanks to a generous donation by the Jack and Dorothy Byrne foundation, all that guests need to do is ask for a wicket at the ticket window for free skiing and riding.
Storrs Hill opened in 1925 with “The Scrape,” a ski jump so called because jumpers who “dove in too deep” would scrape their bellies on the landing. Founded in 1923 by Lebanon High School Mechanical Arts teacher, Winter Sports, and Track coach Erling Heistad and the Lebanon Outing Club (LOC), the area is now home to New England’s only year-round Nordic ski jumping training facility, home to 10m, 25m, and 50m jumps, for the training of Olympians.
The first alpine ski trail was cut in 1931, with Heistad, Harold and Dutch Townsend, Fred Hansen, and Nils Backstrom (who competed for the US in the ’32 and ’36 Olympic Games) designing the trails. The first lift was installed in 1935 making Storrs Hill possibly the oldest continuously operating lift-served ski area in the country.
Without visionaries like Erling Heistad who opened his students minds to possibilities, where would winter sports stand in our culture? Ernest Dion, the ski team captain in 1932 Lebanon High School, went on to open Snow Crest, which today is known as Whaleback, another classic New Hampshire ski area.
In 1954, a $16,000, 40-meter steel jump was added and dedicated to the honor of Erling Heistad. Mezzy Barber narrowly defeated Ernest Dion for the first championship held on the jump in January 1954. Barber, from Bennington, VT, was first at the 1952 U.S. National Ski Jumping Championship and the recipient of the Torger Tokle Memorial Award, given by Norway to the U.S. National Ski Jumping Champion. One month later, Ernest Dion’s two sons (Roger and Doug) and nephew (Bernie), were featured in Boy’s Life magazine for their jumping prowess at Storrs Hill.
In January 1955, future Olympian Charles Tremblay set a Storrs Hill record with a 140 foot jump off the Erling Heistad Hill, winning the state championship.
A young Mikaela Shiffrin came to train on their slopes and they have photographic proof on their website which is well worth visiting..
So not only is this a great place for a day of skiing, its bathed in US ski history.
It’s still early season and those of us with Indy Passes are picking locations by conditions. I choose Pats Peak this weekend for my six-miles of skiing, about my limit at this point. Give me some time.
Pats Peak was perfect. No this was not extreme skiing, this was get out, try to go fast, get your rhythm back skiing. But the biggest surprise was the Xstream Mobile Bar at the summit. Created by Kamryn DePaula and her husband, Chris DePaula, it is an airstream atop a ski hill, the ultimate speakeasy. Matt the bartender asked us if we wanted him to split the beer into two glasses, as he did it. It was like being at home.
Chris DePaula grew up snowboarding at Pats Peak. On his website, he writes:
“I grew up riding at Pats Peak before becoming a professional snowboarder traveling around the world. After my snowboarding career came to an end, I asked myself where I was the happiest and it has always been home at Pats Peak. I used my contacts in the ski industry to approach the general manager about starting a waffle business on the mountain. He gave me the opportunity and with a handshake deal began to build the trailer for the upcoming ski season.”
His original waffle business, Unlawful Waffles, has expanded into Peaks Pretzels and now one of the best bars I have ever visited at a ski area. It’s worth a run down the slopes.
