If your passion for skiing or snowboarding exceeds your budget or abilities, try this well-priced weekday package at California’s Yosemite National Park, where you you can ski, eat, sleep and sharpen your sports skills. And with the park’s Badger Pass Ski Area boasting new state-of-the-art chairlifts and other improvements, it’s a great time to go.

Our goal was just 10 miles away: a drop-dead view of Half Dome and a rustic hut where we’d huddle around a roaring fire and feast on lasagna and red wine.

In summer one can drive from Yosemite’s Badger Pass to Glacier Point in half an hour. But in winter the unplowed road is covered with several feet of snow and there’s just one sensible way to get to the point: on skis. Our group wouldn’t have had it any other way.