Enfield -- Despite a wet Christmas weekend and the dampening prospects for the economy, ski mountains in Vermont and New Hampshire are reporting a solid start to the season.

Small mountains like the 30-trail Whaleback and larger ones like 141-trail Killington said they are close to matching last year's holiday totals.

And while visitors appear to be more price conscious than in the past, weather has had a far bigger impact than economic concerns on customers' decisions to ski, according to people in the industry.

“We had a pretty strong opening, and then we got hit by the big storm and we were 100 percent open,” said John Drinane of Whaleback Mountain. “There was the melt and rain around Christmas, but we were still fairly strong.”

The rainy Christmas hurt totals somewhat, but most of the mountains bounced back, said Parker Riehle of the Vermont Ski Areas Association. Killington is pacing ahead of last year's sales, said resort spokesman Tom Horrocks, and Mount Sunapee has been consistently packed all week. Sunapee general manager Jay Gamble said the mountain was at capacity yesterday, with 5,000 people from around the Northeast. He expected it to stay that way with the cold and snowy forecast for this weekend.

“In the bigger picture, our business has been as steady as the weather has allowed it to be,” he said. “When the weather is good, business is good.”

The holiday stretch from Christmas to New Year's is among the most important revenue generators for New England's ski resorts, according to Karl Stone of Ski New Hampshire, a trade group. The Christmas and New Year's season and President’s Day skiing combined can account for up to a third of a mountain’s ski season totals, Stone said. Final holiday totals won’t be available until next week, but the early indications are comparable with last year, a banner season for most mountains. There were 2.36 million ski visits in New Hampshire last winter and 4.3 million in areas were on pace with what they did last year during Christmas week.”

The upbeat reports, however, should not be taken as a sign that confidence in the economy is improving. In fact, consumers habits have changed, Riehle said. Skiers that ordinarily would have gone out West to Colorado are staying closer to home, he said. That puts resorts in Vermont and New Hampshire at an advantage because they are within a day's drive of a number of urban population centers.

“Here, we have a tremendous geographic advantage of being within a day's drive of 80 million people,” Riehle said. “What we're seeing more and more, given the economy and weather, is booking windows getting shorter and shorter. People are booking at the last minute.”

At Killington, nearly half the Thanksgiving holiday visitors -- 40 percent -- booked rooms within three days of their arrival, Horrocks said. Also, money-saving options like the “Killington Express Card,” which offers discounts on lift tickets, has had twice the amount of interest among skiers as last year, he said.

Whaleback has seized upon its appeal as the affordable local option, Drinane said. It has played up the $15 deals on Whaleback's Web site, and starting next week, mid-week ticket prices will drop to $20 from $40 during the holiday.

“We're going to be pushing that more, trying to get people to come out and take advantage of the $20 ticket,” Drinane said.

Yesterday at Whaleback, the mountain was humming with 45 kids and instructors on the final day of its ski and snowboarding camp.

Hartland resident Bob Comier, who was waiting for his wife and 14-year-old daughter, said he hasn't yet felt the sting of recession and said it didn't keep him from enrolling his daughter in the camp. For the first time ever, in fact, he bought a season pass at Whaleback.

Another Hartland resident, Leimomi Guy-Studebaker, said she changed some of her buying habits in response to the souring economy, but she'd still pay for her 7-year-old son's lift ticket.

“We have to,” she said. “We didn't buy the board for nothing.”

Once people invest in the equipment, they want to use it, Drinane said. They may not upgrade during hard times, but they'll probably take the skis out during the winter.

Weather, more than the economy, has the biggest impact on people's decisions to ski, Gamble said. Recreational habits don't change. But where people choose to recreate and whether they decide to upgrade gear does change, he said.

“The trend seems to be that in tough times, retail purchases will slow,” he said.

“People will recreate in their core recreational interests. People who enjoy skiing will enjoy skiing, but just not purchase any other things.”

That seems to have been the case for at least one of the Upper Valley's ski and snowboard outfitters. Holiday business at Golf & Ski Warehouse in West Lebanon was slower than the previous year, said owner Ned Waters. Children's gear sold OK, he said, mostly because parents and grandparents were buying them as gifts. But adult equipment has dropped considerably, he said.

“There's no question that people are spending less, buying smaller items,” Waters said.

The store has responded with more aggressive discounts. For the first time in 20 years in business, the store launched a post-Christmas sale in the final days of December. Usually, that doesn't happen until February, Waters said.

“We have been, unfortunately, reacting to the reality of the times,” he said. “It's certainly an uncomfortable feeling, but we're in a survival mode. We’ll do what we have to do.”

At Omer & Bob's in Lebanon, sales have been better than expected, said co-owner Richard Wallace.

The store won't match sales from the previous December, which were an all-time high, but it has done well in its new location on the Lebanon mall.

Much of that, however, could be chalked up to bigger promotional discounts.

The store is offering 25 percent off on ski clothes, which goes up to 35 percent with a second purchase and then 45 percent off with a third. When retail is suffering as it is now, Wallace said, stores have to compete on price.

“There is no doubt that retail sales are price driven at this point,” he said.

As for the rest of the ski season, nobody is offering any predictions. There are still two big ski holidays coming up in February -- Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and President's Day -- but if the weather doesn't cooperate, the momentum built during December will be lost.

Riehle of the Vermont Ski Areas Association is trying to keep perspective.

“The way we look at December, is that it's the first quarter of a four-quarter football game,” he said.

“There's plenty of winter left to turn those numbers around.

“We definitely are keeping a watchful eye out.”