Open The Chutes!
By far, no other mountain is a local’s mountain to Reno, Nevada than Mt. Rose. Nestled just 30 minutes or less away from the Truckee Meadows area, Mt. Rose stirs up a yearning for the snowboarder inside of me. That’s right, I am a snowboarder. I hope that doesn’t cause many skiers to turn and run away from this article because there is a lot of good information, if you’re in time to learn about it.
No other time of the year is better for picking up a season pass to a local ski resort than early fall each year. Even better is if the deal is sweetened by a coupon to one of our local ski and snowboard shops in town, Bobos Mogul Mouse (otherwise known as “Bobos”). Tomorrow, Saturday, September 22, 2012 and Sunday, September 23, 2012 only, Mt. Rose will be selling their season passes onsite at Bobos. With a deal on a regular adult pass, you get a $25 cash coupon to spend at Bobos. I will surely use this to wax my board and maybe get some other advantageous items for some time outdoors this winter.
Winter sports are huge in the area. With ski resorts from Squaw Valley, Alpine Meadows (my favorite of all of them), Donner Ski Ranch, Northstar at Tahoe, Diamond Peak, Heavenly Lake Tahoe, etc. there are more than enough ski resorts to wet your palette if you’re into coasting downhill with a stick on your feet or two.
Now that we have all of the good news out of the way, it’s time to get to the meat of this article – asking yourself, what this has to do with Nevada and Sierra families.
Some of the perks of having a season pass is being able to take your kids to the mountain with you. Almost all of the resorts have some sort of skiing and snowboarding instruction onsite where you can either stand by and watch your kid go down the hill as early as four years-old or drop them off for the lesson and come back when the lesson is complete. What’s great about Mt. Rose is that they have season-long ski and snowboard leasing options for kids, so you never have to worry about your kid out growing a ski boot or equipment. Further, Mt. Rose has “Rosebuds Kids Camps” that are multiple lesson times in one day and they provide the equipment for the young aspiring winter Olympic athlete. This is a great option, especially if you have a season pass.
Another great place to take your little one is Sky Tavern. Sky Tavern is a co-op run by staff and parents on the weekends as a school to teach kids to ski and snowboard.
“Kids are taught skiing and snowboarding under the watchful eyes of [the] Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) and American Association of Snowboard Instructors(AASI) volunteer Trainers. Lessons range from beginning to very advanced levels. Instruction starts at age four for kids with parents joining or nine for kids wanting to come up on the bus program and continues through high school ages. And yes there are even lessons for Mom and Dad!”
So, if you’re into outdoors activities and you don’t mind a little cold weather during the winter. Pick up a local season pass or sign up for lessons for your children now, while you can because, many of these offers won’t be around much longer this year.
Here’s a map to get to Bobos this weekend, in case you need directions.