Lift-ticket deals: Less green stuff, more white stuff

IF a ski or snowboard trip induces euphoria, the first trip to the ticket window may provoke just the opposite.

Daily lift tickets at many of the larger U.S. ski resorts now top $80.

But those prices fluctuate wildly depending on when you buy. There's early, pre-Christmas, holiday (read: most expensive), regular, mid-, high, bargain and late season. And certain ski areas keep ticket-window prices secret until the last minute.

Beyond the lodging packages and occasional youth or military discounts, there are more fluid deals on daily lift tickets at Western resorts. Here is a sampling. Because prices fluctuate, some may no longer be available.

Ski free. Jackson Hole, Wyo., has a freebie deal with no blackout dates. Fly into nearby Jackson, present your boarding pass at Jackson Hole Sports (located slope-side) and ski free the day you arrive. They'll even throw in free equipment rental. From Southland airports, you can hit the trails by late morning.

To entice visitors to drive to the east side of Utah's Wasatch Mountains, the Park City Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau offers a day-of-arrival Salt Lake City pass to the Canyons, Deer Valley or Park City resorts. Register online at www.parkcityinfo.com/skiing/quickstart/, then print and take a voucher to a ticket window.

Colorado's Copper Mountain offers a two-for-one deal for Frontier Airlines' Denver passengers upon presentation of a same-day boarding pass. If you leave Los Angeles or Orange County on an early flight, expect to arrive around 1 p.m.

Skiers and others flying Delta Airlines into Hayden airport (officially called Yampa Valley Regional Airport), which serves Steamboat Springs, Colo., also can get a deal. You must be a SkyMiles frequent-flier member and present a boarding pass with your account number at a resort ticket window. With a noonish arrival and 22 miles to the ski hill, you essentially get a complimentary afternoon pass.

Through retailers. Safeway, King Soopers (a grocery chain in Colorado), Walgreens and some sporting goods stores in Colorado's Front Range communities carry discounted passes to Arapahoe Basin, Breckenridge, Copper, Crested Butte, Keystone, Loveland and Winter Park.

At REI stores in the Bay Area or Sacramento, members can purchase $44 tickets to Mt. Rose at Lake Tahoe. These stores and the Reno outlet also sell discounts to Kirkwood ($56), Northstar ($56), Sierra-at-Tahoe ($56, including a $5 retail or food voucher), Squaw Valley ($60) and, during non-holiday periods, Sugar Bowl ($44).