Though every ski hill has equipment available, lines tend to back up on weekend mornings. Better are in-town acquisitions, like a seasonal rental from Eastside ski stalwart Sturtevant’s Ski Mart or Shoreline’s Seattle Ski and Snowboard. Evo, with locations in both Fremont and at Snoqualmie Pass, offers a season pass for two-day premium rentals, ideal for trying different brands.

The key: don’t bother buying. Not just because newbies should wait until they know they love it, but also because learners often progress quickly beyond beginner gear. (And kids, of course, grow like weeds.)

Independent ski schools have largely gone extinct in Western Washington in recent years—except at Summit at Snoqualmie. Groups like Powderpigs, Webbski, and Alpine West offer community and weekly lessons for kids and adults. Parents find built-in parent friends to ski (or tailgate in the parking lot) with while the littles learn the ropes. 

In days of yore, cheap learn-in-three-days ski packages drew new customers to ski areas; now, most large mountains offer only standard (and spendy) group lessons. Mission Ridge still boasts a first-timer’s offering, the $300-ish Freedom Pass: a season’s worth of rentals, group lessons, and beginner chairlift access, plus discounts for full-mountain lift tickets or intermediate lessons after three days. White Pass has a similar three-day package, plus a first-timer one-day offer for the noncommittal.

Diehards crowd ski parking lots in the morning to get first crack at new powder, but beginners have little reason to rush—groomed beginner runs stay fairly consistent all day. Save with afternoon or night skiing lift tickets to learn on relatively empty slopes.

Indoor skiing: it’s not just for Dubai. Bellevue’s Mini Mountain Indoor Ski Center predates the few massive indoor snow mountains around the world (New Jersey has one now, too). It’s home to three conveyor belt contraptions that can be used to learn skills—or do skirobic workouts.

Used gear is the beginner’s friend, and ski swaps (mostly buy-and-sell events, not trades) have defined the sport since its early years. Some are single weekends, like the annual Newport Ski Swap consignment sale at Newport High School or Mountain to Sound Outfitters’ West Seattle Ski Swap. At used-gear store Wonderland Gear Exchange, every day in fall and winter is basically a ski swap.

Flat skiing can be a gateway drug. “Tons of people get into the sport by trying Nordic skiing first,” says White Pass Ski Area’s Kathleen Goyette, dialing in their winter sports affinity before moving to the downhill version.

In running a 20,000-member Facebook group called Ski the Northwest, Marc Galt found that new skiers wanted two things: a ride to the mountain and informal lessons. “People don’t know other people who ski, and they don’t know what they don’t know,” he says. He suggests ski clubs as a place to meet a crew who will give the inside scoop. “You can get a $300 jacket on Craigslist for 40 bucks,” he offers as an example. “Costco has base layers for $8 in fall.”

Most mountains offer discounted lift tickets that only work on the bunny slopes, but the Summit at Snoqualmie has long had one of the best low-cost options for day one. Magic carpet access—like riding a flat escalator—is usually around $20.

Ski the Northwest’s Marc Galt has a theory: if newcomers to snow sports don’t learn how to get up from a fall without expending excess energy, they’ll quit after the third tumble. Skiing and snowboarding rarely come naturally folks on day one—but as the millions who flock to the slopes across the Northwest can attest, it gets a lot more fun.