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Find out how New England's ski resorts, like many mountain resorts across the country, are attracting families with top values, off slope fun and year-round appeal.

"It's not just about skiing anymore," says Stacey Lopes, events manager at Loon, Cranmore and Waterville Valley, three of the 20 alpine resorts in New Hampshire. Yesterday's ski resorts are today's "mountain resorts," offering everything from spas to swing dance, snowmobiling to science shows. Resorts all over New England are trying strategies to bring people back again and again.

In the United States, interest in skiing remained flat for most of the 90's, according to public relations director Barbara Thomke at Smugglers' Notch, Vermont and Tom Meyers at Wachusett Mountain, Massachusetts. So resorts began looking for ways to retain the skiers they had attracted and find ways to interest non-skiers, lapsed skiers and potential skiers with an ever-growing range of services and activities. For the already converted, ski areas compete by offering faster lifts, more trails, and greater variety.

Bringing back former skiers who have left the fold is still the aim of many current programs. Easy-to-maneuver, short, shaped skis are in, as featured in the skiing programs offered at Vermont's Okemo, at Wachusett, and other independently-owned ski areas.

Because the latest in skis are easier to use, ski experts agree, they can help people get over some barriers to returning to the sport. Similarly, Cranmore promotes a "Get Good Quick" approach, breaking lessons into small, manageable bites sprinkled throughout the day. Smugglers tries to hold onto its newest skiers by opening Morse Mountain, a newer slope for just-post-beginners. Thomke is hopeful that getting these fledgling skiers to an area where they can practice, away from the speed and intensity of more established skiers, helps novices better enjoy the experience.

And have you seen those ski toys? Looking like bicycles and scooters but with skis attached, these admittedly funny-looking conveyances offer variety for those seeking a different way down the mountain. The ski toys, great tools for learning and reputed to be easier on the knees than downhill skiing, have been available at many mountain resorts for the past few years. For 2005-2006, Smugglers' Notch is premiering its newest snow toy, the Airboard, which resembles an inflatable sled.