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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ski Bum’s Guide a tell-all look at “sliding” through life for free

Nov. 12, 2003

Have you ever wished you could ski for free, or even make money doing it?

The Ski Bum’s Guide (published by Writer’s Collective, 79 pages, $9.99) is an absolute necessity for those who feel they can no longer afford to ski/snowboard and would like to find an alternative to paying those high resort prices. The wealth of valuable information is astounding in this remarkably frank look at hitting the slopes for little or nothing. Some of the “hints” you will find highly useful and some could possibly offend you, but that’s what makes this guide so unique. You will not find another one like it anywhere, but you will definitely use it on your next weekend jaunt to the mountain!

Written by Steven Steinberg and Darren Romar – two infamous California ski bums with more than 40 years of experience between them – the guide is just that, a first-person look at skiing for next to nothing. The Ski Bum’s Guide is a must-have for anyone who has ever wondered: “How do those guys get all that free stuff while I’m stuck paying retail prices?”

Learn how to locate the cheapest (or free) lift tickets, get ides on where to procure free food and drinks at ski resorts and even find out how you can make money from it all! Some terms covered in the book may be familiar in an uneasy sort of way - scalping, clipping, poaching – while others are more legitimate – discount vouchers, resort jobs, press credentials. It can all be found in the Ski Bum’s Guide.

“This book is part pocket guide and part outrageous story, but it shows you a side of skiing and snowboarding you probably never expected to see,” said co-author Darren Romar. “You’ll learn a thing or two about getting in some very cheap skiing and snowboarding and you will probably feel better about yourself once you see the humiliating lengths that real skiers and snowboarders go to, all in an effort to get up on the hill without paying.”

Included are plenty of details on how to “manipulate the system,” but the book also devotes time to exploring other possibilities for lowering your cost, such as working at a resort or trading free skiing for a web or newspaper article. In this guide you will find specific web addresses of resorts that hire seasonal employees in the U.S., Canada and Europe and almost anywhere else it snows, as well as details on how to utilize websites and mailing lists to get discounted lift tickets. Also included is a section on press credentials and how your writing ability and contacts could land you with some free lift tickets. But perhaps the most “controversial” section of the book deals with how you can make extra money collecting and re-selling lift-ticket vouchers on the Internet. This is followed up with the legality of the proposition and a treatise on why it may actually benefit the ski resorts. Even if you would never consider “scalping” tickets on the ‘net, the ideas presented in the Ski Bum’s Guide will definitely make you think.

Below is an excerpt from the Ski Bum’s Guide, which appeared in the San Francisco Bay Guardian newspaper and San Diego’s Revolt in Style (200-2001):

“When one thinks of a ski bum, it usually involves a 1970s VW bus loaded with Top Ramen, cheap beer and ski and snowboard equipment parked in a ski resort parking lot for days or weeks on end. In recent years, my partners and I have dramatically changed all that. Now it’s a large motor home towing a hot tub with a keg of Hieny touring all the resorts of the western states while generating income through extremely creative means.”

“It all started years ago after getting sick and tired of Top Ramen and cheap beer. I didn’t have the cash to ski or snowboard as much as I wanted to, so I had to create ways of getting access to ski lifts for free at my favorite resorts. I tried almost every tactic imaginable, like conning a lift operator with a six pack, clipping people’s tickets in the parking lot, or back country packing it through an inconspicuous area of a resort and skiing until I got caught. Of course, these methods are at least borderline illegal, and the really extreme methods are practiced only by a fringe minority of the skiers and boarders dedicated to the sport but unable to afford the exorbitant rates ski resorts charge. Most resorts now charge over $50.00 per adult with some in the upper $70s. When you tack on sleeping accommodations, food, equipment rentals and gas, it’s no wonder the ski industry has been on a flat growth path for so long. People simply cannot afford a casual ski trip any more, especially the younger generation that truly thrives on tearing its way through virgin snow for weeks on end.   Some resorts have tried to offset the flat trend by offering inexpensive beginner packages, “Stay & Ski” packages, and reasonable season passes, however most of the true die-hards don’t need to rent equipment, prefer to crash on a local’s floor or couch, and abhor the thought of having to ski the same resort the entire season. The major problem for ski resorts is getting new people on the hill, and we feel that they are going at it the wrong way. To keep up revenue by continuously raising prices will surely backfire some day. Promotions to attract new skiers and boarders to the mountains are confusing and sometimes just plain silly, (Buy a $20,000.00 car and we’ll give you two season passes – a $300.00 value!).

”Fed up with the ever-rising prices at the resorts, a few years ago we decided to take matters into our own hands. We began like most bums-of-old begin by clipping tickets in the parking lot and steaming the ticket off the old wire and using a new one (the resorts eventually caught on and now heat discolors the ticket), or sneaking onto the resort using various methods like described above. Eventually we grew tired of looking over our shoulders all the time so we decided to get creative. We decided to start a publication called the “Ski Bum’s Guide” to sell on eBay. In its first edition, the guide was very rugged, but we outlined some of the really crazy things we and a couple of others did in an effort to get up the hill for free. We decided to make ourselves temporary spokesmen for all the downtrodden in the sport.  We supported a crazy website called Slide4less, and we got some spin-offs going for the ski bum’s guide, and top10ticket. All of them support the fringe ski and snowboard crowd’s perspective, but we’ve actually been trying to pull the material more into the mainstream. The book and the web sites definitely offer some perspectives of ski bumming that might be disturbing to some people, but the overwhelming response we’ve received has truly proven it a helpful reference for those dedicated to the sport.

”Additionally, we bought a motor home and had it wrapped with 3^rd party advertisements to justify the purchase. We then began searching everywhere for promotional deals. For example, Weiner Schnitzel was giving away free 2-for-1 ski vouchers for a certain resort. We visited the place until to smell another hot dog would send us lunging for the nearest bathroom or to fresh air. With hundreds of these vouchers on hand, we parked the motor home at the resort, gave away free pints of beer, and sold the vouchers at a price way under the standard price, but at a sufficient profit that allowed us to ski for two weeks and come home with a couple hundred dollars more than we left with.

Some techniques are legitimate; it’s not truly “illegal” activity by definition, but it is definitely borderline. The Ski Bum’s Guide covers all angles of the sport and has thus remained a non-mainstream publication. Eventually we plan on making it more publicly accessible as it grows in popularity. Most of the really outlandish tactics we’ve employed were conjured up by Steve; the original founder and partner at Slide4Less.com. For example, there’s the “Listerine Bottle and the Schick Razor”, and the “Ski Bum’s Day” stories. Both of these stories are adapted form the original “Ski Bum’s Guide”. And, as you’re going to see, the original version of the Ski Bum’s Guide does step a bit “over the edge”:

The Bum

”Day 1 - Wednesday

It is the middle of the week and all my tickets are good at this time, though some are not good on the weekend. I drive from the Bay Area to Tahoe starting at about 4pm, and I park in my RV at Squaw Valley and I wake up at about 7:30 am when I hear the people who work at Squaw arrive. I make some hot tea and eat a sweet roll. Cars pull up on each side of me and I ask the passengers if they have their tickets yet, and they don’t so I offer to sell them 2 of mine for $80. I’m one of the first up the hill for fresh tracks and get in a full day of great Skiing.  

At 4pm I head down the hill to The Resort at Squaw Creek for free hot cocoa and cookies (because they were giving them out that day for some reason) and then I headed to the Squaw Valley Lodge on the free shuttle. I love those hot tubs, and they are easy to get in. Plus, on every other floor they have 2 washers and dryers so I take some soap, shampoo, and my razor to the Lodge with me, I put a load in and then I hit the tub, killing two birds with one stone. After a long soak and finishing my laundry, I’m off to a Club on the North Shore where I have $700 credit. I bought their gold packages for $199.00 per pack, (remember, I’m in Casinoville, so I’m employing the proper ski bum tactics for the area), and that gave me $200 bar credit, $200 coffee shop credit, $100 Steak and Lobster House Credit, $100 gambling credit that I sold for $75, and 10 free pulls on Mega Bucks - a free slot machine for patrons where the worst thing you win is 2 free drinks and $50 Gift Shop credit. They have Dinner Specials for $5.99, but it costs me 1/3 of that with my coupons. I get $600 of food and a bar credit for $199 (the drinks are 1/3 the price too). This place has a really good deal, and now I have a ton of food and drink coupons that should last me a good part of the season. I stay up late and after leaving the Club I head to the next Resort, Diamond Peak, 3 miles from Incline Village where I spend the night (in the parking lot in my RV).

Day 2 - Friday

Diamond Peak is the last Resort on the North Shore of Tahoe and has a small crowd almost every day, even on the weekend. It’s a small place, but it has a decent hill with more than 1,800 of vertical and decent advanced terrain. Plus the views at this place are absolutely unmatched by almost anyplace anywhere. Most of the people have passes and live at Tahoe so selling tickets is very hard at Diamond Peak – they don’t really sell that many themselves. But I met some people the night before who were going to ski at Northstar. I saved them $40 on 2 tickets so they skied Diamond Peak instead and I made $60. I saw those people on the hill and they thanked me for the tickets. They had never been to Diamond Peak, they loved it and they never saw such a great view of the Lake from a run before; they even treated me to lunch. They asked me if I had any more tickets to other Ski Resorts. Dah. Of course I have Tickets to Every Ski Resort because I’m A Pro Ski Bum. After another great day of skiing at Diamond Peak I headed to the Biltmore to use their hot tub and to get some free food. They have a bar upstairs and downstairs too, and they put out free food from 4-7 everyday. The Tahoe Biltmore has some great ski package deals. It can be really inexpensive, and it’s close to several Tahoe resorts. A big late winter/early spring storm is coming in and I park my RV in the free parking lot, and by nightfall it’s really dumping and it’s not going to let-up for awhile so I’m not going to ski tomorrow.  

Day 3 – Saturday  

I visit a timeshare that is giving out 2 free Northstar Lift Tickets and dinner for 2 at the Sol’ Domain, one of Tahoe’s best restaurants. I ate my free dinners that night and took a tub and had a few drinks with some free coupons I found in the Ski Tahoe newspaper and headed back to Squaw to spend the night. My Squaw tickets are not good on Sundays.  

Day 4 – Sunday  

I sleep in until 12 noon. When I get up, some people are leaving and I ask them for their tickets. Sometimes you can trade for a beer or a smoke, but they almost always give it to you for free. At about 12 noon they start checking tickets for half day. So I put my clipped ticket on my ski boot because they don’t like to bend over to check your boot and won’t be able to tell that I clipped it. The entire time I have been selling tickets on eBay for an income, and the tickets I sell at Tahoe provide me with plenty of pocket money to spend on things that I don’t have a coupon for. I’m trying to graduate from parking lot selling, which is a high-risk proposition. Considering that scalping ticket vouchers is borderline illegal. I do this all winter, going from resort to resort skiing and trying to find coupons and other deals that I tell people about. Follow my advice, and you can travel the world, following winter, skiing everyday, and make a living, sort of, especially if you can manage to get a laptop so you can sell tickets on the web (and if you’re totally nuts).”

The Ski Bum’s Guide sells for $9.99 at www.skibumsguide.com. If you are a skier or snowboarder who is being “squeezed out” by industry pricing and want to fight back, pay us a visit. If you work for a ski resort and you want to find out why so many people are ditching your ticket window, and how that might actually benefit you, buy this book! Visa and Mastercard are accepted.

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