Skiing in the Dark. . . I mean Night Skiing

It’s not often you see a whole bunch of amazing photos of people on the slopes… under lights and a night sky. This is actually one of the main reasons I enjoy night skiing, and so many other people do to! Lack of crowds. We’ll get to that. Another few reasons are pricing, and night-time experience.

Night skiing has certainly changed and evolved over the years. A big part of this is in the engineering of the lighting of the slopes. Gone are the days of yellowish lights on the slopes with dark spots and “ski at your own risk” experience with bumps and changes in the snow being difficult to spot.

In fact, night skiing has really never been better!

Engineers have done their jobs looking at both how skiers are affected by lighting and by finding lighting methods that really do an amazing job of replicating daylight conditions. Most of the time the lights have a slight downslope angle (in the direction of the skier), assisting in creating shadows that enable skiers to find their way through the bumps and angles with pleasure, rather than startled pain. Modern LED lighting really lights things up smoothly and uniformly, making it possible to experience the slope without really considering the fact that it’s the dark of night!

I can’t think of a single ski resort that doesn’t have reduced pricing for night skiing. The coolest part of winter time skiing is that night skiing starts so darn early! Most resorts start at 6pm. While winter nights are in full effect at 6pm, it’s really the same time that many folks are done with work. In the peak of summer, you’d have 4-5 hours of daylight left. In the crease of winter months, you’re really seeing darkness well before 6pm! But that doesn’t mean the day is over, far from it! Night skiing can be a GREAT way to get those runs in, even when you don’t have a season pass. Full-priced night-skiing tickets for Bogus Basin range between $10 for children and $19 for adults, and it’s pretty common to find discounts. Don’t let a $200-$1200 season pass expense hold you back. You can ski a LOT at night before you ever hit a season pass ticket price.

The night-time experience. It’s just that. An “experience.” It’s surreal in so many ways. You have well lit slopes, but you can look up and instead of blue skies and clouds you get the Milky Way and planets. It’s surreal! The night time experience is also great, because the slopes are so much lighter by way of people. This means two things. 1) More solitude, and 2) more ski time. Less time in line = more time skiing. That’s two wins right there.

Food. I know I didn’t mention it at first, but while talking about the advantage of catching the slopes at night, I immediately though, “yeah, I like those fries,” It’s dinner time, baby. Eat up!

There’s not much, by way of “technical” that I can offer in terms of night skiing experience. It’s the same as daytime. Same equipment, same runs, same snow… just lit up with artificial lights, during “after work” hours, and far cheaper, if you don’t already have a season pass.

Go do it! You’ll find that even though it’s “night” the slopes are so well lit, that you’ll not be worried about darkness! The price is right, and even better, the slopes are generally FAR clearer of other skiers. More runs, more fun.