It’s snow cheap and it’s spontaneous

Even just trying to move on the spot when you’ve got more layers on than Mum’s 1980s trifle is restrictive.

Kids have this mysterious habit of growing frequently, so their snow gear doesn’t even fit them from one season to the next. (Mine neither, if I’ve eaten too much chocolate between.)

So hiring (or buying) gear for the four of us is expensive before we’ve even left home, but equipment hire, parking, entry and lift tickets are even more so.

And if I haven’t pleaded my case enough, snow trips with a family also require more planning than I often want to concentrate on.

But I’m not here to convince you not to go to the snow.

No, no.

It might be all those things above to me, but the beauty of this natural weather phenomenon is not lost on me either.

And I take my kids to visit the snow winter after winter, because I believe parenting is less about creating little clones of yourself and more about helping your kids find what they like and discover who they are.

We don’t enrol in ski school or carve up the slopes on boards.

We don’t rent chalets and make long weekends out of it.

We just go for snow play and tobogganing, photography and yeti hunting among the pretty snow-covered trees on surrounding tracks.

There are a few places close to home where these things are easily accessible and don’t seem like such a logistical mountain to climb.

Lake Mountain, near Marysville, is known as ‘the family mountain’.

It has a couple of toboggan slopes and some cross-country ski tracks.

You can hire gear there, and on certain days you can get up to the car park in a 2WD vehicle without the need for tyre chains (you will need to check the conditions on the day of your visit). All-wheel drive and four-wheel drive vehicles can enter at any time throughout the snow season.

Car entry to the resort is only about $60 (cheaper if pre-booked online) and you need only walk a few steps from the car park and you are on the carpet of snow, which means the car is also easily accessible for snacks, drinks, a picnic lunch or a change of clothes, without having to spend any further money at the resort facilities if you don’t want to.

Last July, we did our snow trip even cheaper.

We called ahead to a ski hire shop in Porepunkah to check whether the toboggan slopes Dingo Dell and Cresta Valley on Mt Buffalo had snow on them that day.

After being given the green light for Cresta, we headed up with an Esky loaded with lunch, stopped in at the same ski shop to hire a couple of toboggans, then ascended Buffalo with ease and for free, winding our way along the roads between the snow-decorated rocks and vegetation that lined the edges.

It’s a pretty magical drive when you usually only see snow in real life one day a year.

Cresta has toboggan slopes, snow play areas, four marked cross-country ski trails and two marked snowshoe walks (if you’re so inclined to want to put yourself through the agony of deliberately walking through snow for hours).

Here we unintentionally made the creepiest snowman I ever did see (maybe don’t use dead waterlogged grass as hair), had a snowball fight and “wheeeeee”d our way down the slopes on toboggans for a couple of hours before some exploration in the snow away from the hustle and bustle.

Gear wise, all we really needed this day were snow boots, waterproof pants and gloves.

Our regular hoodies and beanies sufficed on top.

After building up a sweat walking — or should I say trudging — through the snow, I even spent some time in a short-sleeved T-shirt beneath the vivid blue cloudless July sky.

If you just want to see and touch snow, breathe in the crisp mountain air, save some dollars and fill in a winter’s day, these places are perfect to do it.

The cold is almost bearable when you consider that if there’s one place it looks good on, it’s the snow.

Snow season starts this weekend in Victoria, so I guess it’s time to dig out the kids’ snow daks, see how big a wedgie they give them this year and how far up their shins the cuffs have moved to decide if that’s still an acceptable amount of dorkiness and discomfort.

Otherwise, we’re heading to the hire shop.

Let’s snow!