Lift served mountain biking

As my username suggests, I'm a Trek Chick.
I am open minded to other brands but had great luck with my first decent mt bike when I stumbled on to a season ending sale and got my first really nice ride, which is the up scale model of the 4900 HT.

Schwinn has had some good geometry and great bikes in the past, but has since gone the way of mass marketing and discount store platform.

If you're doing lift served mtbiking, you really should think about renting and/or demoing near the mt, and get a feel of the new bikes and new technology. Each brand and model has a whole different feel.

As IHart suggests, Specialized has some nice geometry and is a great option for someone getting into biking.

I would avise you to stay away from Specialized. First off they are way over priced for what you get. They currently have THE name in mountain biking and they make you pay to have that name on your bike. Unless you are really going to get into mountain biking I would get a hardtail instead of a full suspension. A HT will be much cheaper. A very good brand that is sold in bike shops that has great bang for the buck is Jamis. The make great bikes, and ussually there component spec matchs bikes from other brands costing $100 more.

EDIT - don't worry too much about what brand you get. Most people don't know this, but with exception to some VERY high end bikes sold by the big brands and some small boutique brands, 3 companies in Taiwan make the bike frame for 99% of all the other bike companies in the world. And yes, this includes Specialized, Trek, Jamis, Kona...........