Henniker, New Hampshire – It’s ski season! We all had a blast on our pandemic ski trips last winter. This winter, we will do more traveling outside of New England, which might make it difficult to go skiing (as much) inside of New England. BUT I am going to try. For the kids, we invested in the IndyPass–as well as rental equipment for the season–to see if we can make it worthwhile.
IndyPass
This is a unique pass which includes 90 independent and family-owned resorts around the country (11 in New England). The pass covers two days of skiing at each resort, plus a 25% discount on subsequent days. I like this option because it gives us access to a variety of ski resorts around the region. The kid’s pass pays for itself if you use it twice. After that, the kids are basically skiing for free. The adult’s pass pays for itself after four outings at participating resorts. I am not sure how many times we will ski, but I doubt it will be more than four. So we invested in passes for the kids, but not for me.
We also got them rental equipment at Sun & Ski Sports. I figured this would pay for itself after three or four outings. But in the meantime, it would save us the huge hassle of fitting and renting equipment every time we ski. This is a painful and laborious process with multiple kids, so I was pretty sure it would be worth it. Again, I did not rent equipment for myself–mainly because they did not offer it at Sun & Ski and I was too lazy to look elsewhere.
Pat’s Peak
So, here we are! It’s vacation week, and the twins have a friend visiting from out of state. So we took our first ski outing to Pat’s Peak. Pat’s is the closest proper ski mountain to Boston. (Not everyone would agree that it is a proper ski mountain, but it suits our needs.) It has been our go-to ski destination over the past few years (read about our experiences here and here). The twins like it because they know the lay of the land. Most importantly, Pat’s Peak is included in the IndyPass, which was a big attraction of the pass.
We took two cars full of kids up the Pat’s Peak, and they all had a blast. We had so much fun on our first ski outing of the year, that we decided to return later in the week (with more kids!).
And just like that, we used up our two visits that are included in the IndyPass.
But never mind. The IndyPass has already paid for itself. And now we have extra impetus to check out some new resorts. And the 2022 ski season is off to a swift and snowy start!
