Every ski day ends the same way: the legs give out, the sun drops behind the ridge, and the kids suddenly have more energy than anyone has a right to expect. In Red River, the answer is not the lodge couch — it is a snow tube, a floodlit hill, and a one-hour session that starts just as the lifts go quiet.
Winter tubing at Red River Ski & Summer Area runs in one-hour sessions beginning at 4:30 p.m., after the day skiers head in. If the first session sells out, extra sessions open at 5:30 and 6:30, but the smart play is to book ahead, because evening sessions on busy weekends fill fast.
The rules are simple, which is the whole point. Riders must be at least 42 inches tall — there is no age requirement — and each tube carries exactly one rider. Tubes are assigned to the guest named on the ticket and cannot be shared or transferred mid-session. There is no skill involved and no gear to rent: you sit, you slide, and the hill brings you back to the top for another run.
Sessions cost $30 per person on weekdays and $39 on weekends and holidays, sold per session, per person. Sales tax is not included in the posted prices. Active military and first responders — along with their legal direct dependents — receive discounts on tubing and other winter products, so bring an ID if that applies to your group.
The ski area requires a minimum of 10 guests to run a session. If a session does not fill, riders can move to another day or take a refund, which makes the reservation more flexible than it looks. Tubing opens the week of Thanksgiving alongside the early season and runs through the winter, with availability marked on the resort's online calendar. Some early-season Mondays and Tuesdays are blacked out, so check the calendar before you build plans around a particular night.
What makes tubing the perfect apres-ski activity is who it is for: everyone who does not want to click into bindings. Non-skiers get their own mountain moment after dark, grandparents can ride alongside grandkids, and tired parents can trade a final chairlift run for hot chocolate in the base lodge while the kids burn off the rest of the day on the hill.
Book the session for the same day you plan to ski, then walk straight to the tubing hill when the lifts close. Cold air, lit-up snow, and the sound of a whole hill laughing on the way down — that is a Red River evening worth planning around.