What would you, Yes YOU, do for a free lift ticket? - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4ster 

When I was a kid I would attach lift tickets & help in the parking lot at Heavenly for a few hours in the mornings.  Back then the tickets were attached with a copper wire & a little lead lug that had to be closed with pliers.  They would give us a ticket good for the rest of the day.

 

I have also done a lot of volunteer race crew stuff over the years.

 

The lift evac thing can be fun if you don't freeze your a$$ off.

 

JF

OK, I smell a rat; back then, I'm not convinced they had lifts to charge tickets for, and didn't you all smear animal fat or sumsuch to ward off freezing in the first place?

In fact, isn't this you on the cover of Saturday Evening Post, earning your turns with a Garand?

I got evacuated in real life one time at MRG. Love nor money nor lift tickets would get me to relive the experience. Then again, I'm not a fan of heights.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FairToMiddlin 

OK, I smell a rat; back then, I'm not convinced they had lifts to charge tickets for, and didn't you all smear animal fat or sumsuch to ward off freezing in the first place?

 

In fact, isn't this you on the cover of Saturday Evening Post, earning your turns with a Garand?

 

 

Not quite, but pretty close.  I never had to ski with the bear trap bindings, but much of our original equipment was from the Army surplus store.  I wish I still had some of those fat powder baskets to go with my fat skis , & that copper wire would be worth some $'s now.

For me staying warm was all about itchy wool, the more "well to do", wore goose down.

JF
 

Even though, I don't like heights, I would evacuate from a chair for a free ticket. But I wouldn't drive over 50 miles and would try to carpool to save $ and the planet. I have done a lot of other things to get free tickets including shoveling snow at Northstar in the mid-70s where we got paid well, and a lift ticket for every four hours. I found between the lifts and skis available then, it was not steep enough for more than a few turns.

In the early to mid-1980s, I slept in my car at Donner Ski Ranch to make sure I was one of the 750 people who got free skiing on the anniversary.
It was also the Champagne Grand Opening of their triple chair and I had four free glasses of Chandon before realizing I had to ski it off so I could drive home.

On Halloween in 1989, I wore hospital scrubs to get free day at Boreal which opened early after storms that followed the Loma Prieta earthquake and was free if in costume.

Last season, I skied 25 days on my pass at Squaw plus 13 days at other places. 9 of those days were free from different sources and one was $10 Tahoe Card ticket to Diamond Peak.

I skied Alpine on the last Saturday of February when they were reporting 27" of new on a ticket I received from visiting Chevy dealer. I hit a lot of untracked including first tracks down Gentian Gully. My Squaw pass was blacked out and I heard it was the day of the worst lines of the season at Squaw as they struggled to open lifts after 5 feet of snow in 3 days.

Earlier in February 2011, I skied two mid-week powder days at Northstar on free tickets from checking out phones at Metro PCS. I had multiple tickets from visiting more than one store and knew more about phones and promotion than some of their salespeople. Northstar was running the whole mountain, including White Rabbit, while Squaw was only running some of their bottom lifts.

I planned to use a Tahoe Card to ski Sugar Bowl on last Sunday on March, then realized it was no longer valid there on weekends late season so I bought a $45 Sierra Avalanche Center ticket. I had one free ticket, but needed another for my wife, who ended up not skiing as winds were too strong for her and we were starting a week-long trip.

I bought my wife a 5-day Squaw pass (for $299 - not much less than my restricted season pass cost) since we stayed at the base for a weeek. She quickly used those, but we each got a ticket for a 15-20 minute shutdown on Silverado very early one morning when we were two of the five people on the lift. She use one our 6th day that week and one on great powder, but super-crowded Memorial Day Sunday.

I went to Mammoth the Friday/Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, where it was very windy. I used a Coke 2 days for price of 1 and provided two of these for my host to use for his son. I received these by e-mailing people on the Mammoth forums amd offering to pay postage.  

This year, I carpooled to TGR movie in Santa Clara to get free Sunday-Friday Alpine ticket. I purchased and printed movie tickets online and ticket taker said I could use it for free entry to ski show that weekend. I already had two free entries to ski show from $40 Tahoe Cards that give me a Kirkwood and Alpine ticket (that I count as $20 tickets) and some tune-ups and other benefits. My friend and I entered show three times so now we have way more Bear, China Peak and Dodge tickets than we will use this season, but will try to make sure they don't go to waste by sharing with friends and family.

I got a free lift ticket at Aspen Highlands after being evacuated form the Powder Bowl chair.  The bad news was I was an instructor with a season's pass!  Alanis was right......"isn't it ironic?"

Lets see where do I begin.  Ah yes in 1996 I  joined the local volunteer  fire department so I can take this 140 hour EMT class for FREE, which included working in the Hospital ER and doing ambulance ride time.  In the volunteer fire department I had to clean ambulances and be on call every 5th weekend.  Now that I was an EMT I joined ski patrol, got more training with toboggan, medical, and had to pass national ski patrol OEC written/ practical tests.  As newbie patroller you get all the fun jobs like digging out tower pads and ski packing crud snow on non-groomed trails.  Ski patrol requires 20 days of patrolling plus two days of refresher training every year.  All this to get as many fee personal/family ski tickets as a I want.  YOHOOOOO What a deal hey.   In case you haven't figured it out,  all that work is not worth the free lift tickets.  What is worth it you may ask. First tracks on a powder day with nobody else on the mountain.  Now that is worth all that hard work.  Most places on the east coast, you can't buy first track lift tickets.

I became a ski instructor.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sibhusky 

I've frequently gotten "free" lift tickets for gatekeeping at races.  But, believe me, it AIN'T FREE.  

And where I am, the lift ticket is for the same day as the race, and if it is J4-5 race, the race is over at 2:30.

Quote:

Originally Posted by handhdad 

Quote:

Originally Posted by sibhusky 

I've frequently gotten "free" lift tickets for gatekeeping at races.  But, believe me, it AIN'T FREE.  

And where I am, the lift ticket is for the same day as the race, and if it is J4-5 race, the race is over at 2:30.

Yeah, they used to pull that cheap stuff when I lived back east.  Here it is for another day and you can gift it to a friend, just not sell it.  

I can't recall ever getting an honest to goodness "free" lift ticket, but I might be able to do one better.  I was paid to ski.  Really, I was paid to ski when I was a member of Seven Springs Safety Rangers and our job was to ski with the guests, patrol the slope, yell at kids and assist ski patrol.  All of this for $5.00 or more an hour which was good back in the 80's and 90's.  Plus we qualified for pro deals and got discounted season passes and Tiny Tots for the family.  And best of all, you got to go to the employee cafeteria and eat like kings for $2.50.  It was a pretty sweet deal and I did it for 11 seasons.  Not surprisingly my skiing ability progressed quite nicely during those years.

Rick G

Quote:

Originally Posted by nobueno 

Sat stuck on a lift in 0 degree wind chills for 45 min. 

Did that at Copper...in gale force winds near the top of Super Bee, just above treeline.  My other free ticket was also at Copper.  My brother and I stopped to help a downed snowboarder, called ski patrol, and helped get her into the toboggan.  When the patroller found out we were complete strangers he gave us vouchers for free tickets for helping.  I think we lost them before we could redeem them.

I once posted a snow dance video for a free ticket.