I took a group of two skiers and two boarders to the late night ski session at Liberty Mountain Resort this past Saturday, January 27, and had a good time. Liberty, Roundtop and Whitetail are offering “late night ski” sessions this winter on selected Saturday nights. A special three hour lift ticket (9 p.m. to midnight) is sold for $12, and rentals are also discounted. Since I’m often buying for several family members and friends, this deal presents obvious advantages.

Saturday was pretty windy though, and my main reservations about making the 70 mile drive to Liberty from the D.C. area were high winds and/or long lift lines. Neither proved to be much of a problem. The wind had moderated by the time we got to Liberty, and while there was a good crowd of teens and college age people waiting to buy the $12 lift tickets, once that line dispersed the mountain absorbed everyone pretty well. (I waited to buy lift tickets inside at a smaller and much warmer line in the building at the base of the beginner area where ski lessons are normally purchased/arranged.)

I spent most of the evening hanging out with two youngsters as they tried to master snowboarding on the beginner slope. It is served by a high capacity but appropriately slow moving quad chair. Later on, my eight year old daughter and I took our “sticks” over to the main mountain and skied a few runs from the top.

All the trails at Liberty are open and conditions weren’t too bad. The primary surface was machine-made packed snow. There were some scraped-off areas in the center of trails and piles of sand-like snow along trail edges, about what you’d expect night skiing after a busy Saturday in January. They have made lots of snow at Liberty this year. Some of the tougher slopes on the backside of the mountain and also lower Eastwind are very bumped-up.

Whitetail plans to have late night ski sessions on February 3 and March 3, while Liberty and Roundtop are planning on having late night ski sessions on February 10 and 24. For more information and pricing, contact each resort using the links below.