$3 Off Tickets to Snow Mountain

[exp] [/exp]After this week-long snow-cation, I can do without more snow in my yard. But it’d still be nice to play…we didn’t have anything sled-worthy on hand, so we miss out on a bit of fun.

If you still want to play a bit, you can save on tubing: Thanks to a deal on Gas South’s offer page, you can save $3 on tickets to Snow Mountain.

There’s tubing + a snow play area at Snow Mountain. This season, my girls are a bit over the snow play, but they keep begging to go back for tubing. This year, they have both the 10-lane Tube Runners area + they’ve added a new 400-foot tubing hill: Avalanche Alley. I haven’t made a decision about going back yet, but we learned a few valuable lessons while we were there that may help you out if you go:

1) Dress in layers (natch), and bring a change of pants, socks & shoes with you. Very few people had snow boots at Snow Mountain—I saw cowboy boots, fur-lined boots from Old Navy, rain boots from Target, and sneakers, but not one pair of snow boots.

2) Tube first, then play. You may get a little wet when you tube—one lane tended to kick up a bit more ice & dump it in my tube, which then melted & got my pants a bit wet. But that’s nothing compared to how wet the kids will get when they decide to throw themselves into building snowmen or pitching snowballs at each other. And you’ll want to keep your gloves dry as long as possible if yours, like mine, are designed to protect your hands from cold winds, not moisture.

3) Get there early or plan to stay late. Your ticket’s time window applies to the two hours you’ll be allowed to go tubing. If you buy the 9am time slot, make sure you get there a bit early & start tubing right away. Last year, we got the 9am ticket window, and while it’s just one batch of people, we got through the line in 10 minutes or less. It doubles at 10am when there are two groups, and the wait time was closer to 15-20 min. per ride. If you buy the last time slot of the day, you’ll have a similar low-volume experience during the last hour of tubing time.

4) There are single tubes & double tubes in Tube Runners + those in Avalanche Alley seat up to six. BUT kids need to be at least 42″ to tube, even if they’re riding in a double tube with an adult in Tube Runners. The minimum height to ride in Avalanche Alley is 36″. There is a pint-size snow play area though, and they can ride down a small hill there. There’s a maximum height of 54″ for kids who play in the Fort Snow area.

–Jennifer Maciejewski