You Don't Need a Ski Pass to Love Ski Areas

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After parking my car next to the chairlift I stepped out into three inches of spring mud. The lot, lying next to one of the ski area’s main high-speed quads, had finally thawed after spending the winter blanketed under feet of snow. Now the lift sat quietly idle, ski season having come to an end.

But ample snow remained higher on the mountain, and we were here to ski it. Tiptoeing through the exposed and soaked earth to the back of my car, I awkwardly danced into my touring boots before pulling out my skis, climbing skins affixed to their bases. As warm, wet snowflakes fell from the sky my friends and I plodded through the mire toward the slopes, skis on our shoulders. Treading past the lift abandoned three weeks hence, we then came abreast of an array of snowcats and snowmobiles parked haphazardly in the middle of a run, one that was choked full of skiers just a few weeks before.

At last we found the vestiges of winter that still remained–a ribbon of continuous snow marked the beginning of our ascent. Tech bindings snapped into place on our boots. And skis now adorned our feet. We were ready to climb; ready to enjoy the type of resort skiing we loved best–the off-season.

To some, the middle of winter is the least opportune time to ski at a resort. To these folks, the best skiing at these behemoths of commerce and convenience is not when the lifts are operating; it’s not when establishments of the après scene are busy pouring beers and serving nachos, or when the luxuriant hotels and brasseries are catering to their fancy clientele. It comes during shoulder season–either in the autumn, after the leaves have fallen, but before the snows of winter arrive in earnest. Or in the spring, when the mud returns at lower elevations and the lifties and waiters have all fled to warmer latitudes for a long-due mental break.

The best skiing at a ski area is when it's closed.

A serenity comes from not only touring under your own power, but ascending a silent, calm mountain that typically bustles. The space opens itself up to a deeper interpretation, to a more meditative clarity. Not to mention the skiing can be amazing and adventurous.

Especially before the resort opens, this style of skiing can often be marked by long walks on dry mountain roads only to ski scantily covered north-facing slopes. But the autumnal iteration of earning ones turns on the ski area has an atmosphere all its own. As the cold fall winds presage the coming winter, and the sun sinks lower in the Southern Sky, the body yearns to ski. Ascending thousands of feet only to ski a few hundred is eminently worth the effort. The skier is starved of skiing, and these precious turns fill their cup.

While skiing the resort in the throes of winter has its perks–the ease of riding a lift and the thrill of lapping runs being some of the better–its downsides are all too well known to the observer mired in this modern era of mega-passes and Airbnb side effects. Skier-choked runs and entitlement endemic of the aristocracy reign for a time, the ancillary parts of skiing often prioritized, culminating in the youthful if sophomoric extension of college hijinks that is Gaper Day.

But after the snowball-laden debauchery of April 1st and the subsequent hangover passes, the mellowness of spring blossoms in full. The second-home owners turn their keys elsewhere, and ski areas close their doors one-by-one. The gift of shoulder season returns anew.

The ski areas may have snow enough to keep the lifts spinning, but meetings in boardrooms elsewhere have dictated otherwise - the profit just isn’t there. And thank goodness many areas still allow uphill travel after the lifts have stopped spinning. It allows grander spoils for those willing to use their own power to climb the now closed ski areas. Snowpacks still have a few weeks to rise, and vernal storms still may yet bring ample precipitation to the mountains. Even skiing well into summer is possible at many resorts.

The approach necessitates human power, while the snow takes on a wilder nature–the groomers having long gone home. All this close to home, all at your fingertips. Just a few steps up the remaining snow.

We forged on up the dormant ski area, one foot in front of the other. Towering wind lips of snow–frozen waves of water usually cut down by groomers–dotted the landscape. All of these relics of a storm that had brought rain to the valley but feet of snow to the higher peaks. Finally attaining the top of the resort, we transitioned to downhill mode in a trusty windbreak amongst the trees. There we set our course toward a powder morning classic–a slope interspersed with pines, protected from the gales.

And protected from the throngs. Instead of clamoring with the masses to get our own first tracks, we instead had the good fortune of being alone, looking down a powder-filled slope that patiently awaiting our turns–one that usually was beset with FOMO-obsessed powder seekers racing to the bottom, eager to sneak into work at 11 to tell their coworkers what they had missed out on.

But the deserted run gave us no such affliction. A blank landscape, only interrupted by the footprints of a hare, laid before us. We joined the animal’s tracks, making bounding turns through surfy, textured powder. Though there were three of us in total we all made our own way down that run, each blissfully solitary for a moment before we reconvened at the base of the slope. There we shared tired, fulfilled smiles. We poled our way across to a traversing cat track that would take us to the other side of the mountain. We needed its circuitous track to gain the opposite aspect so we could squeeze as much vertical out of our human powered run as possible.

Making our way around we came to the last 800 feet of our ski, a west-facing run at the bottom of the resort where snow of a different character greeted us. Wetter and softer, the plane demanded just a little more focus from our tired legs, granting our egress an exciting edge it would never have had if we had been riding the lifts.

At the base of the mountain we came upon the same silent lift and the same vernal mud that had greeted us a few hours earlier. A quick if messy walk to the cars was all that remained of our ski day. There was no chic bar to greet us, no costume party. Those have their place, but it wasn’t today.

Because the day was simply about skiing. Not only did we have a morning full of exertion and snow on a mountain tailored to skiing by a human touch, we had the solitude and camaraderie of a self-powered endeavor, unencumbered by anything ancillary. It was our favorite way to use the ski area; the best kind of day skiing on a resort–a day when it is closed.