Tahoe daytrips promise a surfeit of skiing and beers, but in reality deliver 8 hours of snarled traffic, $50 worth of gas, and punishing sobriety. Trick someone else into taking you: the Bay Area Ski Bus.

Picking up in SF, Marin, and the North/South/East Bays, the BASB's flatscreen-equipped fleet makes round-trip jaunts to Tahoe's best resorts three days a week: Saturday and Sunday, plus one floating weekday (which'll coincidentally be those days your grandmother keeps dying on). Your $99 ticket gets you a lift pass, breakfast, snacks, and apres-ski beer and wine, along with unlimited energy drinks from BASB sponsor Red Bull -- making it the first bus line to secure an endorsement since Greyhound signed with the Professional Hobo Tour, Pacific Division. Further simplifying things, BASB'll directly rent you ski/snowboard equipment, converting rental-shop-waiting-time into groin-tear convalescence time.

Right now, you can sign up for an 8-trip package and get each ride at 20%, plus reserved seating, allowing you to avoid that potty-side back seat, and the fallout from all that overpriced ski-slope chili -- $50 worth of gas.

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Buses fill up quickly; sign up at BayAreaSkiBus.com