Cheapest skiing June-August

Outsidethebox

Lads,

For skiing/boarding during the summer where would you get the best bang for your buck?

New Zealand/Argentina/Chile?

Thanks,
OTB.

RATM

Defintely not Chile, its the most expensive of them all IMO. New Zealand would be a close second.

Argentina would be the cheapest. That said Las Lenas is where all the wealthy Argentines go so avoid if you're on a budget. Bariloche isn't too bad price wise as there are a few hostels in the town with beds for around $10 a night. Lift passes are about $40 per day.

Best value place I found in Argentina is Cerro Castor which is the ski resort in Ushuaia, right at the bottom of Patagonia. It is a long long way from Buenos Aires but once you're there things are cheap. We stayed in Freestyle Hostel http://www.ushuaiafreestyle.com/ for about 6 weeks there and they gave us a good deal on accommodation. You could get steak dinners locally for about €5 and a bottle of wine was only about €2. Lift passes were approx €30-35 per day or you could buy 10 day packages.

Of the two resorts I'd recommend Ushuaia over Bariloche, especially if budget is your primary concern. That aside I found the snow much better in Ushuaia. Bariloche has more runs and a more modern lift system while Ushuaia is quite small in comparison (about 6 chair lifts in total). But in my experience Ushuaia got better snow and much more frequent dumps than Bariloche. A good few of the European Ski race teams spend the summer down in Ushuaia training which speaks volumes about the dependability of snow there- when we were in Bariloche it rained on the mountain a good few days whereas a 1000+ kilometres further south in Ushuaia temps generally stayed below freezing all the time.

Ushuaia isn't that busy nightlife wise, Bariloche would be the more lively spot. But in the Freestyle Hostel where we stayed there was about 30 people there for the season and then another 30-40 who would be there for a week or two holidays. There was a good mix of Argentinians, Brazilians and Europeans so it was pretty much party central most nights of the week.

If you want to do a season in New Zealand on a budget then it can be done but you gotta stay away from the big resort towns like Queenstown, Wanaka, etc. New Zealand has dozens of small private ski-fields and many of them have lift passes for NZ$20-25 per day. Don't expect modern lift facilities, they are mainly drag lifts. Some of the smaller ski fields are famed for their powder days where it might be just you and 20 other people who have the whole place to yourselves. A mate of mine spent a season down there sleeping in a campervan and moving from ski field to ski field. He got some amazing skiing in on a tight budget. But if you go to somewhere like Queenstown where lift passes are NZ$70+ per day then your budget is going to go right out the window.

Hope this helps

Fattes

If you are looking for a full season of proper skiing your options are limited to South America & NZ & the advice from RATM is spot on the money.

If you are looking for a week here or there or a long weekend have a look at the below thread.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055900226

Some of the summer skiing in Europe is pretty good and you will have really good days from time to time as some of the Glaciers will have pow days in the summer.

Indoor options would include Landgreaff in Holand Snowworld is epic and does really cheap deals for stay and ski and their park is amazing.