You may have heard that old skiers never die, but the age thing is catching up with skiing baby boomers.

Statistically baby boomers have been the bread and butter of ski resort clientele. The demographic is slowly aging off the ski hill, though, and ski resorts hope the younger generation takes up the slack.

People who are 53 years old or older still log more skier days on the slopes in North America than other demographics.

Jim Powell, former vice president of marketing for the Park City, Utah, chamber of commerce recently told a newspaper that it takes two millennials — who top out at 36 years old — to spend as much as one baby boomer at ski resorts. Ski resorts are not hurting for clientele, but their demographics may be shifting to a less affluent group.

To ensure enough younger people flock to the slopes in the future, Idaho ski resorts are using innovative marketing strategies geared to hook people in their youth, this is particularly true at the state’s smaller community resorts.

“One of the things that a number of mountains in Idaho and nationwide are doing to appeal to the (millennial) audience is to create a young adult pass product,” said Tony Harrison, publicist for Idaho Ski Areas Association.

For southern Idaho’s Bogus Basin, the pass is $349 versus $549 for an adult pass.

“So, a huge difference there,” Harrison said.

Don’t condemn millennials too harshly. They’ve got student loans, wedding plans, babies, first homes, new careers, new cars, Netflix and video games to distract them from the ski slopes.

The first thing skiing millennials in eastern Idaho mention is cost as a deterrent when it comes to skiing and snowboarding.

“Money is a big factor,” said Katy Shilling, 24, of Idaho Falls. “They’re freakin’ expensive. I go skiing at least three times a month and money is definitely a factor. I don’t have $50 every weekend to go, and that would be considered cheap.”

Jacob Howell, 26, an Idaho Falls carpenter who loves to ski, said costs keep rising.

“Cost and time are huge. It’s more expensive than ever before,” Howell said.

Susan Saad, director of community and customer relations at Bogus Basin, said her ski resort saw the fading Boomer population as a problem and hired the experts.

Bogus Basin’s plan to reach a younger crowd used a “relentless social media push.” Each week, the audience posts stories on Facebook and Instagram showing younger people playing on the slopes.

The number of Instagram followers recently climbed to 30,000, Saad said. A few years ago, Bogus Basin approached a Boise State University marketing class and gave it the challenge of marketing the ski resort to college-age people.

“We did not at that time have many college-age students on the mountain,” she said, despite the resort being only an hour from 20,000 students. “As part of a semester-long project, one of the marketing classes broke down into groups and put together proposals on what we should do to grow our college-age audience. We (followed) a lot of what they did.”

One thing Bogus Basin created was new discounted season passes aimed at students.

“We started with just a few hundred college-age students on the mountain and, last year, at our college-age pass sale we sold 2,700 college-age passes,” Saad said.

Small community ski resorts also have found success tapping into area schools to hook kids on outdoor snow activities before video games turn them into wintertime couch potatoes.

“One of the factors that we think makes a difference is younger people get involved in school programs during their youth, and get skiing and outdoor winter activities in their blood, and it stays with them,” said Dave Stoddard co-owner of Kelly Canyon Ski Resort. “We have 60 to 70 schools in our program that brings busloads and busloads of kids who get meaningful lessons and learn how to do it, and they can do it on a mountain like ours that is a good place to learn.”

Pebble Creek Ski Area south of Pocatello has been doing its school program for 30 years.

“There’s even, at this point, where we have a couple of generations of kids whose parents came through the school program and their kids come to the school program,” said Dana Kmetz, guest services director at Pebble Creek. “We do see them returning.”

With big destination ski resorts such as Sun Valley or Jackson Hole Ski Resort continually raising prices, more people are seeking out smaller hills.

“People look at those prices and say, ‘Maybe I’ll ski locally,” Stoddard said.