Affordable Ski Lessons: share your tips and experiences

[Mendieta]

This sounds like a fantastic perk. Can you request the instructor you want?

Yes. Which makes it ridiculously good!

 

[Chris V.]

I'd love to know more about how this program is working for you? Is it possible to figure out which instructor is teaching when so you can take lessons from same instructor? I took 3 full day lessons at Beaver Creek and got different instructors every time who sometimes offered conflicting advice. So I have become a bit sceptical of the taking ongoing lessons from different instructors.

It's been going very well. I've done six sessions so far, and will be back for more early next week. Alpine Meadows has a rather small ski school, so especially at the higher levels you'll end up being with the same instructors a number of times. I'm sure one could ask an instructor for the upcoming schedule, if one wanted to try to get back out with that instructor.

There has been a bit of a split in styles, which I'm afraid is something we all just have to get used to. The more PMTS-influenced guys teach a narrow stance for all situations and transition by flexion, while others favor a wider stance for groomed snow and an extension in the transition. At some point, you have to decide for yourself what's working. I'm OK with a wider stance for groomers, but favor transition by flexion on most situations. Having the extension move in the arsenal can be useful in certain wild snow situations, I will say.

Other than that, it's all been compatible, and the instructors haven't been fighting each other to get students to do everything exactly their way. And some of them will challenge you considerably with the terrain. Over-terraining? At some point the terrain IS the next objective.

They've already bent the rules a bit. They're open to getting a group together for a ski at Squaw Valley. I've had a totally private lesson extend past noon, though first thing in the morning there was a second student for a while.

 

[DavidSkis]

This may be unique to the Greater Toronto Area, but we have a number of volunteer-run travelling ski clubs including High Park Ski Club (my club). Members get a free lesson from a CSIA-certified instructor on every day trip. Instructors tend to be level 2s, with some full 3s and some partial 3s (e.g. I have my 3 teach). Trips run Sat, Sun, Mon, Wed.

Membership fee is under $200, so you basically come out ahead by taking one trip with the club in the season.

 

[Chris V.]

As of yesterday, Alpine Meadows has cut the price of the Alpine Unlimited package of unlimited ski lessons for the rest of this season by 50%. So that's $495 from now through the ski school closing date.

 

[karlo]

Be an instructor. Share your love if the sport. And, get free group lessons for your family at your ski school. It's very, very cheap. You won't get paid much.

 

[pchewn]

Mt Hood Meadows: 3-time package of group lessons = $109 It's working out pretty well so far.

https://www.pugski.com/threads/ski-lesson-prices-examples-from-your-mountain.17202/page-2

 

[crgildart]

NC and southern atlantic places were charging around $50/hour or hour and a half for private lessons when my kids were starting out. Still pretty reasonable I believe. I can't fathom paying over $100 for a ski lesson of any kind at any place. I could book an entire ski weekend for the family at a local place for the price of a lesson lasting one hour or two for one person at Vail.

 

[SkiSchoolPros]

Off sale now, but hear that 10 group lessons were under $400 this season

Ski School Specials | Keystone Ski Resort

www.keystoneresort.com

 

[pete]

On similar lesson thread was noted some places offer discounted lift with lesson ... to cut cost.

 

[TonyPlush]

Both my wife & I did “The Camp” at Whistler & we both had great experiences. It’s 4 days (M-Th) virtual all day (9:30-3:30) with the same instructor. It actually sounds similar to Taos ski week, though I’ve never been. Also includes running gates, video analysis, après, etc. At $599 CDN or about $450 US, even if you take out an hour for lunch each day, it comes out to about $22.50/hr for a small group lesson with high quality instructors, which seems like a pretty good deal.

Just for a fun comparison, I looks like you get 12 total hours of instruction at Taos ski week for $270 or.... $22.50/hr!

Finally, glad to see people had good experiences with the Alta off-piste. I was already looking at doing one of these when we go in March.

Quick question for @Rostapher or anyone else who's done The Camp. Does it come with line cutting privileges?

Frankly, I'm floored at how good of a deal this program is. Current pricing is $687 USD with 4 days of lift tickets included. For a non-epic pass holder, those tickets are at least a $400 value with an Epic 4 day pass, or $519 if purchased in advance through the website. Long story short, that essentially pushes down the price of the camp to as low as $7 per hour. That's an insane deal!

 

[Rostapher]

Quick question for @Rostapher or anyone else who's done The Camp. Does it come with line cutting privileges?

Frankly, I'm floored at how good of a deal this program is. Current pricing is $687 USD with 4 days of lift tickets included. For a non-epic pass holder, those tickets are at least a $400 value with an Epic 4 day pass, or $519 if purchased in advance through the website. Long story short, that essentially pushes down the price of the camp to as low as $7 per hour. That's an insane deal!

@TonyPlush Re: line cutting yes, AFAIR when you're with your instructor (nearly all day) you get in the ski school line, like all other ski school groups.

Also, YES it seems like an even better deal now that you can add liftes. We went in 2015 before Epic. On snow hours plus extras (got the T-shirt!) is pretty great. We're thinking about doing it again next season.

 

[Rostapher]

On snow hours plus extras (got the T-shirt!) is pretty great. We're thinking about doing it again next season.

"The Camp" shirt

 

[Kneale Brownson]

NC and southern atlantic places were charging around $50/hour or hour and a half for private lessons when my kids were starting out. Still pretty reasonable I believe. I can't fathom paying over $100 for a ski lesson of any kind at any place. I could book an entire ski weekend for the family at a local place for the price of a lesson lasting one hour or two for one person at Vail.

A 60- or 90- minute lesson? One of those would be useless where you have to spend 20 minutes or more on lifts to get to the terrain.

 

[luliski]

A favorite of mine is the pm off trail workshops at Alta, from Watson shelter 1 pm. Small groups, explore new territory, get instruction. $95. Ski until 4 so couple hours' worth.

My second best experiences were the Alta off-piste workshop mentioned above- it was a good 3-4 hours of exploring and almost private instruction - I had one other person in my group.

I should have reread this thread before signing up for a lesson at Alta recently! I was considering the advanced off-trail workshop, but the woman at the ski school desk said, "We do want to make sure you're confident on the black runs at our resort before you sign up for this." At that point I had only been on two black runs at Alta, but I ski black runs at Alpine Meadows and Squaw Valley all the time. I should have discussed this with her further, because there seems to be a gap in Alta's lesson program. I assumed the lesson I signed up for was where I would find out the answer to her question, but it didn't work out that way.

I ended up signing up for the "beyond the blues" group lesson, which I was told would focus more on technique. I thought we would be getting on to black terrain (to assess comfort level with blacks at Alta), but we didn't. There were only four skiers in my group, but for one skier it was his first ski day of the season (my 15th), and he announced at the beginning that he wouldn't ski blacks. There was an extra instructor with us for the beginning of the lesson, and I wish I had asked if we could split off. I don't know if they would have done that, but why else would they have two instructors with four people at the start?

Anyway, lesson learned: communicate your goals and ask questions to clarify if needed.

It wasn't bad to work on short turns, but the only feedback I got was from another student in the class.

Two hour lesson was $80, which I think is a decent deal if you're in the right group and you get feedback.

 

[Decreed_It]

I should have reread this thread before signing up for a lesson at Alta recently! I was considering the advanced off-trail workshop, but the woman at the ski school desk said, "We do want to make sure you're confident on the black runs at our resort before you sign up for this." At that point I had only been on two black runs at Alta, but I ski black runs at Alpine Meadows and Squaw Valley all the time. I should have discussed this with her further, because there seems to be a gap in Alta's lesson program. I assumed the lesson I signed up for was where I would find out the answer to her question, but it didn't work out that way.

I ended up signing up for the "beyond the blues" group lesson, which I was told would focus more on technique. I thought we would be getting on to black terrain (to assess comfort level with blacks at Alta), but we didn't. There were only four skiers in my group, but for one skier it was his first ski day of the season (my 15th), and he announced at the beginning that he wouldn't ski blacks. There was an extra instructor with us for the beginning of the lesson, and I wish I had asked if we could split off. I don't know if they would have done that, but why else would they have two instructors with four people at the start?

Anyway, lesson learned: communicate your goals and ask questions to clarify if needed.

It wasn't bad to work on short turns, but the only feedback I got was from another student in the class.

Two hour lesson was $80, which I think is a decent deal if you're in the right group and you get feedback.

Sorry to hear this, sounds like your group lesson got the old lowest common denominator treatment. Def agree with the takeaway be clear and vocal about what you need and expect.

On our recent trip we also did a beyond the blues with 4, one was my mid intermediate brother, and another was an Alta employee, they apparently have the privilege to shadow any lesson session. Younger kid, good developing skier. Liked to jump anything and everything in sight lol. Then there was a guy who was vocal and chatty with the instructor at first, pretty clear in what he wanted, and probably the lowest skilled skier in the group, but he also kept up and did fine.

For the record we had "Big Ben". Good instructor. We worked on technique on blues, flattening and pivoting the skis, short turns, carving, 360s and a bit of skiing backwards. Coached us to ski pressure on the mid foot. We did some easy blacks to seal in the short, flat ski pivot turns, I saw an immediate benefit and improvement in the steep bumps.

Anyway, def try the off trail next time you go.

 

[luliski]

Sorry to hear this, sounds like your group lesson got the old lowest common denominator treatment. Def agree with the takeaway be clear and vocal about what you need and expect.

On our recent trip we also did a beyond the blues with 4, one was my mid intermediate brother, and another was an Alta employee, they apparently have the privilege to shadow any lesson session. Younger kid, good developing skier. Liked to jump anything and everything in sight lol. Then there was a guy who was vocal and chatty with the instructor at first, pretty clear in what he wanted, and probably the lowest skilled skier in the group, but he also kept up and did fine.

For the record we had "Big Ben". Good instructor. We worked on technique on blues, flattening and pivoting the skis, short turns, carving, 360s and a bit of skiing backwards. Coached us to ski pressure on the mid foot. We did some easy blacks to seal in the short, flat ski pivot turns, I saw an immediate benefit and improvement in the steep bumps.

Anyway, def try the off trail next time you go.

The good news was that my sister, who lacks confidence, also took a lesson (one of the reasons I went ahead and did it even though there didn't seem to be great options for me). My sister took the lowest intermediate lesson and was told she had seriously underrated herself. Where before her lesson she refused to go on any blue trails at Alta, by the end she had the confidence (and the instructor's blessing) to try any of the intermediate runs there.

 

[oldschoolskier]

My most affordable lesson is FREE!

How do you get a lesson like this, you need to be a better skier so that you can teach someone of lower skill than you. If you are teaching and are vested in what you do, you learn almost as much as the student you teach. In my case itsussually family or friends looking to improve (so its a win win both ways, free for them and I get to learn).

Don’t get me wrong, top instructors are worth their price and on occasions as you get better you need an insight lesson. But value for money consider teaching , you’d be surprised what you learn if you’re open.

 

[oldschoolskier]

Sorry to hear this, sounds like your group lesson got the old lowest common denominator treatment. Def agree with the takeaway be clear and vocal about what you need and expect.

On our recent trip we also did a beyond the blues with 4, one was my mid intermediate brother, and another was an Alta employee, they apparently have the privilege to shadow any lesson session. Younger kid, good developing skier. Liked to jump anything and everything in sight lol. Then there was a guy who was vocal and chatty with the instructor at first, pretty clear in what he wanted, and probably the lowest skilled skier in the group, but he also kept up and did fine.

For the record we had "Big Ben". Good instructor. We worked on technique on blues, flattening and pivoting the skis, short turns, carving, 360s and a bit of skiing backwards. Coached us to ski pressure on the mid foot. We did some easy blacks to seal in the short, flat ski pivot turns, I saw an immediate benefit and improvement in the steep bumps.

Anyway, def try the off trail next time you go.

With about 54 seasons under my belt, the biggest skill I still practice every time out is 360 spins and variations (ar least one or twice during a day). These simple drills teach/reinforce balance and edge feel which is the basis for all other skills.

 

[benson822175]

Affordable depends on your perspective. I just signed up for the unlimited lessons package at Alpine Meadows. At $989 it sounds like a lot, but if you plan to take a few lesson it's a very good deal. Advanced lessons will be very small groups. If you get one on one it's cut off at a half day, but as a one time private lesson that would cost about $500. My first day was yesterday, and I thought it was top notch. A good chance of developing an ongoing relationship with some great trainers.

I received no promotional consideration for this message.

Wow, the good old days. Prices are currently $1,900 for the 23-24 season (https://www.palisadestahoe.com/plan-your-visit/deals-and-packages/alpine-unlimited-deal) and will continue to go up every year

 

[pete]

Wow, the good old days. Prices are currently $1,900 for the 23-24 season (https://www.palisadestahoe.com/plan-your-visit/deals-and-packages/alpine-unlimited-deal) and will continue to go up every year

yeah, I'd sign my kids up at Steamboat which I thought was on the pricier side of things. I recall not that long ago, back when this thread started, it was (if I recall correctly) $169 a day for a group and you needed a lift. However an add on lift was $30.

Now it's around $269 (I think) and add on lift is $100.

However I'll toss this out, if you go during low season, mid week, you have a great chance of having a private or semiprivate lesson.

My kid got a private Snowboard this year, even with a healthy tip it was a palatable deal.