Snowboarding

If you're a New Yorker who likes to get your ski or snowboard on and can find people crazy enough to get up at 3 in the morning with you, I highly recommend looking into the day trips organized by Emilio's Ski Shop. They leave almost every day to various New York and Vermont locations and range in price from around $60 to $90.

Two weekends ago, we gathered an impressive neighborhood crew of 7 people and traveled up to Windham Mountain in the Catskills and last weekend, three of us met up outside Homage around 3am to catch a bus to Okemo Mountain in Vermont.

Having taken a couple of these trips, with the intention of going as often as I can this season, I thought I'd share a few things I learned for those of you out there who might be thinking about going on one of these adventures.

1. Do Vermont, not New York
Okemo was a much better experience than Windham. I'll take nicely groomed trails of packed snow over ice any day. Also, it wasn't as crowded. The downside is that it leaves a lot earlier but the ride didn't seem much longer. (The exact length of it, as we found out on the way back, was exactly two National Treasure 2: Book Of Secrets.)

2. Take the bus, don't drive
Maybe you have a car and you're thinking to yourself, I'll just drive up there when I want and leave when I want - no 3am for me. But look at it this way - the lift ticket price for Okemo is $72 and the price of our trip was $80. You're basically riding the bus for free. It's a great deal.

3. Don't sit in the back
Not only do the back seats not recline but both times we went, they didn't bring enough lift tickets for everyone on the bus and we had to wait around at least 15 minutes for them to get more from Guest Services. Extra time spent on the bus is not time well spent.

4. Bring beer
Beer isn't just for the train ride home from Connecticut after a hard weekend of tubing. A tasty, ice cold 24 ounce beer totally hits the spot and makes the ride home far more enjoyable (minus the bus bathroom visit that it guarantees). Thanks again to the cool guy sitting in front of us who was kind enough to share.