Ski Trip Mementos

Hello all. Our family is just starting to ski together and aside from the few local hills we hope to make a few trips a year to some of the bigger resorts around the West. I'd like to bring something back from each place that the kids can look back on as the grow up and say "I remember that place, that was a great trip" and such. I thought maybe the ski hill stickers would be good but kind of small so I thought maybe a trail map from each place. Potentially I could frame them and put them up somewhere together but that might soon take up a lot of space. Has anyone done anything like this or have other suggestions?
Thanks,
TR

Keep it simple!

Keep it simple, a picture is all you need.

A chair from each lift to put out back ,I am sure this will make a much more memorable sized keepsake.
Actually I use to grab pins from the resorts,just throw them in my sock drawer when I got home.Now when I see them I remeber each place and smile, they take up little room are cheep and don't bring the FBI out looking for you

Pictures, lots of them. We've got quite a few albums full of ski photos from 18 years of ski trips with our boys. We've also got a few of the Resort photographer special photos. They make nice coffee table momentos.

Everything else gets lost in the clutter. Keep it simple, pictures and smiles.

FWIW, I know some ski pin and patch collections that have been in the respective family for more than 2 generations.

Don't know that digipix get that sort of respect nowadays.

momento

My daughter gets a pin from each resort that we go to. She has a little box that she keeps them all in. She is 12 and my goal is to have skied all the resorts in the state by the time she is in high school and we only have a few to go. Occasionally she wears them on a jacket and they have prompted questions from adults who are obviously skiers.

Combine that with a trail map and your in phat city.

I'm going to have to go with the picture suggestions as well. The pin and patch industry isn't as robust as it once was and the selections are a bit thinner that you might want. Besides, pictures are personal and can include the entire family

Skiing and winter sports are the best memories for your kids, doesn't matter if it's the routine local hill or the big trip.

Outside the obvious pictures, pictures, pictures, I always get a sticker for the Brady Mobile and one to save.

I also save an extra trail map, Something to put inside the photo album.

We also have collected pins from every resort we have skied - the rule is we need to ski at least one run to get the pin. My wife's collection is over 50 and is displayed on a bolt of fabric on our wall. My two daughters' collections are pretty impressive and continue to grow. Its a great family tradition, very easy, pretty cheap. True, the selection is not what it once was, but each place has its own logo so the pins are still distinctive. We take lots of pictures as well, but goggled, helmeted, bubble bodies in front of mountain peaks, pretty as they are, tend to blend.

I used to have a nice collection of trail maps and lift tickets tacked up on the wall of my room at my parents house. Now I try to pick up a hat from each new place I visit. Wish I still had the trail maps. I though about printing replacements off he web and framing them but it just wouldn't be the same.

I have a shotglass from every resort I go to..... Just tell your kids they are "little glasses."

or just go with pins

This is one of my biggest money wasters. I know it's blowing money but I love momentos. I like shirts, hats, stickers, and coffee mugs. I used to get pins when I was younger. I always grab a few extra trail maps. one for my son's room, one for his keepsake box, and one for my students to look at in my classroom. Because of my school's demographic and socioeconomic level most of those kids will never see a mountain. But they love to hear about my trips when I come back from one. I always show them a slide show the next school day.

I try to bring something back from every new mountain I ski. Im not particular about what I bring home. I have shirts, mugs, shot glasses, pins, stickers, hats...I even have a trail sign that my parents won at a raffle at Okemo years ago.

shot glasses

Since this is a family oriented thread, I won't tell you all what I brought back from Killington back in the 70s.

Did the penicillin take care of it?

The wife brings back coffee mugs. She thinks that one day we will get a place in the mountains, and we will all site around the table in the morning drinking our cups of joe before going to the hill.

I get a pin and put them on a hat (which is now too heavy to wear and most have fallen off anyway).

Trail maps are cool to put in a little basket next to the crapper for some good reading on those difficult days.

Lift tickets, a patch or two, stickers, & pins get stuck on a cork board on my office wall. Trail maps go into the library, (desk drawer.)

BRAVO!

Once long ago I brought back a gift from Taos for my wife - pair of ladies panties with "experts only" printed on the front. Made me want to boogie the bumps

I always thought saving lift tickets would be a fun Christmas tree ornament theme.

Why Ty was young, he used to get pins.

We have a "wall of fame" with photos here at the house...great conversation pieces when other skiers come over.

PINS???? what was I thinking???

If you ski Utah you can bring a new wife home from each resort!!!

Now trust me on this one, your kids will never forget and always talk about the ski trips to Utah when they get older!!

Well, I see I better be careful where I plan trips to in the future.  Utah might be me alot more then I bargain for.

Recently (past 3-4 years) I have been buying pins and saving lift tickets from the new mountains I visit.  Pins are fun, not always available though, when not,. I go with patches.

 

Lift tix are great because they usually have the date on them and you're already paying for it, so why not keep it?

 

Anytime I would go somewhere without my GF (she does ski, but doesn't go on the "guy" trips) I used to get her a coffee mug, pint glass or shot glass.  Ufortunately she is a clutz and breaks them.  If I go on any trips without her any time soon, she is getting a hoody.

Mrs goblue collects a Christmas Tree ornament from every place we ski.  The selection rarely has the name of the resort on it, so she writes the name and date in permanent ink on the back or another inconspicuous spot. 

Try to get at least one photo of your group in front of something distinctive about each place or trip. Examples: famous trail markers, distinctive lifts/trams, historic lodges, summits, the heli (I wish), the nightmare hotel, aid shack where the patrollers took Jimmy, neck-deep pow, sitting on rental car stuck in snow bank, etc.

 

I saw a funny video of a guy that went all over the world and danced the same stupid dance in exotic and mundane places. Maybe you could develop your own special "pose" to repeat in various exotic locales.

 

Don't collect snowballs. They don't last.

Refigerator magnets.  She started with Crested Butte '87. Now over 30 of 'em.

 

Same here.

Sometimes I buy them, sometimes I chav them from a bar.

All of the above and then the ONE thing I make sure I bring back is............a rock. Sounds funny but Florida doesnt have rocks (lots of sand tho) so I get one and put em in the garden. I take my dremmel and mark em with Steamboat, Alta, Bretton Woods, Killington, Winter Park, ect ect.....let just say I have a lot of rocks that reminds me of sking and the places we've been to.

Just made my first trip west at age 44 and I brought back my lift tickets, trailmaps, and got a helmet sticker from the 4 resorts we skied.  I'm going to use the trailmaps to decorate my ski tuning area in the basement and will pair up the lift tickets and a picture from that day of skiing to be framed for display somewhere in the house.

 

Mike

Edited by MikeC - Wed, 04 Feb 09 17:45:03 GMT

Coffee cups. I use them daily, and one day might be Steamboat or Aspen or Snowbird. Even in the middle of summer I look at my cup and remember the day.

 

I avoid trinkets like the plague.