It works like this: You stop at a participating Shell gas station, buy 10 gallons of fuel and then they will give you a voucher for a free lift ticket at participating resorts (with the purchase of 1 full price lift ticket).

Compared to last year there appear to be far fewer participating ski areasr, several local hills have dropped out, as well as entire states like Wisconsin, although there are still participating areas in California, Colorado, and Oregon. In Michigan, Cannonsburg Ski Area, Swiss Valley, Apple Mountain, Mt. Zion and Norway Mountain are all killing it with 7-days-a-week deals and no blackout dates, but elsewhere there are a lot of restricted dates & less-desirable times like midweek mornings and Sunday twilight.

Either way, a deal is a deal and maybe you can use this to save some $$$ this winter.

2012 Michigan Ski Free Deals - Participating Ski Areas

The past few seasons, not all of the participating gas station locations have had the vouchers available on Day 1 of the program, so it is always a good idea to call the participating Shell gas stations ahead of time and make sure they have them.

This program has been going on for a few years now and Michigan is really well-represented. Almost every ski area in the state is participating this year.  The rules are pretty simple: buy 10 gallons worth of gas and get a voucher from the gas station good for a free lift ticket (buy one, get one free). There was one hitch last year the gas station right down the road from Pine Knob didn’t have the vouchers on time, so make sure to call ahead and that they have the vouchers. Not every Shell station participates, so check the list and plan your routes accordingly.

Ski areas in British Columbia (including Whistler/Blackcomb), California, Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin are participating so if you’re planning a trip somewhere check to see if your destination is part of the program.

We used this program a lot last year and never had any problems redeeming for a free lift ticket.  The larger resorts tend to be more restrictive but for most places this voucher is good for any weekday and weekend twilight hours, for example at Pine Knob or Mount Holly:

SKI FREE® on Monday thru Thursday, any single session. Saturday & Sunday after 6pm. Blackout days: 1/15-17 and 2/19-21

Links below go to the official skifreedeals.com page for details on each ski area:

Michigan

• Alpine Valley Ski Area – MI
• Apple Mountain – MI
• Big Powderhorn – MI
• Bittersweet Ski Area – MI
• Blackjack – MI
• Boyne Highlands – MI
• Boyne Mountain – MI
• Caberfae Peaks Ski Resort – MI
• Cannonsburg Ski Area – MI
• Cross Country Ski Headquarters- MI
• Crystal Mountain – MI
• Hanson Hills – MI
• Marquette Mountain – MI
• Mt Bohemia – MI
• Mt Brighton Ski Area – MI
• Mt Holiday Ski Resort – MI
• Mt Holly – MI
• Mt Zion – MI
• Norway Mountain – MI
• Nub’s Nob Ski Area – MI
• Otsego Club – MI
• Pine Knob Ski Resort – MI
• Pine Mountain Resort – MI
• Shanty Creek Resort – MI
• Snow Snake Mountain – MI
• Swiss Valley Ski Area – MI
• The Homestead – MI
• Timber Ridge Ski Area – MI

British Columbia

• Big White – BC
• Silver Star – BC
• Whistler Blackcomb – BC

California

• China Peak – CA
• Mt Rose – Ski Tahoe – CA
• Mt Shasta – CA
• Northstar at Tahoe – CA
• Sierra at Tahoe – CA
• Tahoe Donner – CA

Colorado

• Copper Mountain – CO
• Crested Butte – CO
• Loveland Ski Area – CO
• Monarch Mountain – CO
• Winter Park – CO

Oregon

• Anthony Lakes – OR
• Hoodoo – OR
• Mt Ashland – OR
• Mt Hood Meadows – OR
• Mt Hood Ski Bowl – OR
• Timberline Lodge – OR
• Willamette Pass – OR

Washington

• Crystal Mountain – WA
• Loup Loup – WA
• Mission Ridge – WA
• Ski Bluewood – WA
• Stevens Pass – WA
• The Summit at Snoqualmie – WA
• White Pass – WA

Wisconsin

• Camp 10 – WI
• Christie Mountain – WI
• Crystal Ridge – WI
• Highlands of Olympia Ski Hill – WI
• Mt LaCrosse – WI
• Nordic Mountain -WI
• Sunburst – WI
• The Mountain Top at Lake Geneva – WI
• Trollhaugen – WI

But if you’re not the type of person who rides every weekend, and a season pass isn’t for you, you can still get insanely discounted discounted Caberfae Peaks (Michigan) lift tickets from as low as $9.  Even in to February you can get daily lift tickets for 50% off what you pay at the ticket counter. You just gotta be smart about it — only suckers pay full price for lift tickets.

For now, if you go look at their webcam you’ll be sorely disappointed. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Keep praying for snow, if we’re lucky they’ll be open early by December!

Not only will there be prizes for the best riders, but according to their flyer there will also be — wait for it — hot dogs!

First place walks away with a brand new Artifact Rocker snowboard, second prize gets you some 390 Boss binders.  Top female shredder gets a pair of Strut bindings.

Also, you can get insanely discounted Caberfae Peaks (Michigan) Lift Tickets from $8.99 (Save 79%)

Grab a couple friends, stay at McGuire’s resort nearby, and get a discounted season pass for $239 per person. If the season pass isn’t your thing they have several options for discounted multi-day lift ticket packages. Additionally kids stay & sleep free (midweek) with two paying adults.

Novices beware, much of Caberfae’s terrain is not groomed mid-day – I happen to think this used to be part of the resort’s charm, but people who aren’t as experienced don’t normally like the rutted out moguls by 4pm.

Caberfae Peaks is in the Northern lower peninsula, about 20 minutes past Cadillac city on M-55.  If you need help getting there check google maps.

Even if you’re not a degenerate who drives 4 hours on an 80 degree day to slush it up at Nubs Nob, you can probably make this work to your benefit. At most places a day pass is going to run $40 to $50 on weekends or $30-35 midweek.

For instance, use it once each at Mount Holly, Pine Knob, Mount Brighton, and Alpine Valley. That’s $140+ worth of lift tickets. One weekend in Harbor Springs you could use it at Boyne Highlands one day and Boyne Mountain the next. That’s another $90 which puts you well past the break-even point of $189. Another weekend trip to Shanty Creek (use it once at the Creek and once at the sister slopes of Schuss Mountain), well, you get the picture.

They only produce about 400 of these each year, so if you want one you better get one as soon as you can. I’m buying mine tomorrow.

Download your White Gold Card application via the MSIA to purchase via mail or fax, or you can buy it in person at any of a dozen Ski & Snowboard shops across the state.

(Thanks to Jon T who told me about this a few months ago!)

The west side of the state isn’t my home, so I may not have everything listed.

Caberfae Peaks

I would lump Caberfae in with the northern LP resorts by geography, but since they only have a single, 36-room lodge on-site I don’t think it’s fair to compare with the Boynes.  However, Caberfae Peaks has the absolute sickest prices on season passes:

1. $99 for a weekends only
2. $99 for weekdays only
3. $198 for unlimited
4. $49 punch pass – any four days excludes Saturday & holidays
5. $99 punch pass – any four days no restrictions

I don’t know why you’d go with option 5 unless you were only going there only once this winter for 4 consecutive days, otherwise it would make more sense to get one of the other $99 options.

Caberfae used to run sweet college discounts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with a college ID you could buy a discounted lift ticket that got cheaper every hour, at 9am it was $19 and by 5pm for twilight only you could ride for about $11.

Cannonsburg

Cannonsburg ski area is located northeast of Grand Rapids, and about an hour west of Lansing.  At $380 per person, Cannonsburg ski area doesn’t have the most competitively-priced passes, but they do discounts if you buy multiple passes.

Snow Snake

Snow Snake is located in Harrison, Michigan so technically not on the “West Side” but I didn’t want to lump it in with the Detroit area hills, nor with the larger, northern-lower peninsula resorts…

I went to college a few miles from there and never knew it existed (except as a tubing run for little kids).  My loss, I suppose.  $25 daily lift passes and season passes available for $249 is reasonable, because the terrain in the Harrison/Clare/Mount Pleasant region is about as flat as you can possibly imagine.

Swiss Valley

At only $249 for a single, Swiss Valley located in Jones, Michigan, has some of the best deals around.  The almost impossible-to-beat deal is for parents: if you buy your kid a season pass, and you’ve never held a season pass there before, you can get one for only $42.  No, I didn’t forget the zero.  That’s forty-two dollars.  Swiss Valley season passes also have some reciprocal benefits at Schuss Mountain/Shanty Creek, Caberfae Peaks, and Crystal Mountain.

Timber Ridge

Near Kalamazoo and Western Michigan University, Timber Ridge runs 9 chairs servicing 16 trails and snow-tubing.  Topping out at only 240 vertical feet, it’s on the small side, but if it’s close to home, I guess you take what you can get.  Season passes are $239 until September 15 when they go up to $299 through November 8.  After that, full price is $379.

Stay tuned for the next installments of Michigan Season Passes!

If you want to spread that wealth over many resorts, keep your eye out for the “White Gold” card. No official announcement yet but if they make one this year it’s exactly what you’re looking for and rock-bottom pricing.

For the Metro-Detroit area, you’ve got a few options nearby.  I’ll cover the other areas of the state (west side, northern LP, and UP) in upcoming posts.

Pine Knob / Mount Holly

Mount Holly announces that its prices remain unchanged from the 2009-2010 season, so Pine Knob should be more of the same.  That means pre-season pricing of $444 gets you unlimited access to one or the other ($550 during the season).  You can upgrade for $150 and use your pass at both places.

I’ve always thought this was kind of a rip-off.  Since you can only ever use the pass at one resort at a time it’s not like you can use it more. They shouldn’t charge extra to use the pass at both places.

You need 15-20 days to break even at a single, or 20-25 days on the combo pass.  Do the math, it could be worth it if you ride a lot and need to ride both places (but I find the parks at Holly aren’t fun).  Be honest, even if you ride both places you’ll probably ride one of them most of the time. Unless you’re going to put in more than 5 days at the other, you’re better off buying the single pass and paying for daily lift tickets at the other place.

Mount Brighton

Mount Brighton sets up a better park that Pine Knob or Mount Holly and you can get your season pass for $435 early bird, $505 full price.

The downside is that depending on where you’re coming from, you might have to brave the traffic on I-696 Westbound to get there during rush hour. It’s not worth it.  If you live in the area or West of Brighton though, it’s a better option than PK, Holly or Alpine Valley.

Alpine Valley

For $500 you can get a season pass to Alpine Valley, which the last few years has been the bastard child of Southeast Michigan ski areas.  It’s hard to get to (located off of M-59 in White Lake) and they didn’t participate in the Shell Ski Free deals the last few years.  I’ve heard they’ve really amped up the park there, so I’ll have to check it out sometime this winter, but honestly the thought of paying $35 to ride some crappy Michigan park when I could be paying $17 to ride one at Pine Knob, is kinda meh.

You can do a weekend somewhere staying in a Motel 6 for next-to-nothing, or you could do two weeks in the Alps and easily spend a couple grand. For a week-long vacation, you’re looking at a minimum $1000, but probably closer to $1300-1500 to be comfortable especially if you have to fly. We did a week in UT last year including 7 days on the mountains for about $1,200 and we weren’t really slumming it.

How many people? The best deals on lodging if your group is 4 or more people to take advantage of double-occupancy lodging rates.  The number of people will also determine whether you need to rent a car, and if so, what size vehicle you need to carry all your crap.

Once you know how many people are going, you can start working everything else out. Your biggest expenses are going to be lift tickets, airfare, and lodging. Probably in that order but you can mitigate the lodging expenses by planning appropriately.

Lift tickets: $50 to $100 per day. Do some research online and find out you can get discounts buying them in advance, via Costco, or certain shops, etc. Multi-day passes save some cash, too.

Lodging: A basic Holiday Inn hotel room runs about $100 per night in SLC for example, about 30-40 mins from a lot of mountains. Lodging options are more limited (and more expensive) the closer you get to the mountain. We had good luck last year using VRBO.com for short-term rental houses/condos.

Any more than 4 people and you probably want to look at getting a condo or renting a vacation house nearby. We have usually been able to find condos near the resorts for about $200-300 per night which accommodate 4-6 people.

Airfare: I fly Southwest almost exclusively.  from Detroit we can get most places for under $300 and they don’t charge you extra for your snowboard, or checked bags, and they fly in to most of good winter hubs like Denver, SLC and Reno/Tahoe. Airfare may be slightly more expensive if you’re traveling from points further East, and probably less expensive if you’re closer to the Mountains.

Airport transfers: Although you might find some cheaper, plan on $70 each way for shuttle service. Usually in the range of $50 to 100.  The only place we ever used a transfer was Jackson Hole, and that was because it was included with our lodging and we didn’t need a car to get around.

Rental car: if you’re not using a shuttle or public transit, car rental is going to cost you $50/day for a car or $100 per day for an SUV 4×4.

Equipment rental/hire: About $50 per day, give or take a few bucks. Consider buying your own gear, it will pay for itself in a week.

Food: You can easily get by on $20/day if you prepare all your own meals. Probably closer to $30-40 if you’re eating out a lot. We typically have a few nice dinners out at a brewpub or decent resto. Other than that we buy our own groceries for lunches, breakfasts, snacks, etc., and avoid eating at the resort at all costs – $14 hamburgers will burn through your food budget in no time.

Party/Apres: Resort bars are expensive. Your bar tab will be a considerable expense. Hopefully one of your crew is a big-timer and he will run up a ridiculous tab ordering bottle service Absinthe at Mont Tremblant.