EdBacon

Im sure there's somebody with a place in Lake Harmony that's been there since like the 60s or 70s something, at least. Maybe went to Split Rock for vacation as a kid before that.

Lake Harmony area in general was a resort community going back to the 40s. It predates BB being a lightweight relative to what skiers want now. The condos are mostly newer, but it still follows from that earlier development. It's hard to just pack up and leave when the whole place has like 80 years of inertia behind it.

Did you get into Dreamcatcher? There's a really nice huck in there. Dunno if there's enough snow for it yet though.

So basically an Epic Pass is their way of selling you a vacation.

It was like this all morning and when I left around 1pm. It cost $58. Floyd's is closed. The whole East Mountain is closed. They have one blue and T-bolt open. Plus the park and a few beginner runs. Usually JF is slower to open, but this year with BB mostly closed, and them having had a lot of snowmaking weather to prepare, they are really behind the curve. No seating in the lodge. They did say they had food to go but I didn't check to see how that worked.

Oh and the barcodes they sent us for our tickets via email were useless and we had to read out the confirmation codes to the people behind the ticket windows. Through the glass and a full layer of mask/scarf. You can bet that was an efficient method of transferring info. I had a better day at Tanglewood yesterday, and they've been closed for eight years.

Just got back from Jack Frost. I wish I could talk about the snow conditions but it barely registered. I have never, ever seen the kind of mismanagement, incompetence and downright negligent treatment of a ski area towards its patrons. I understand this year coronavirus has made things difficult and complicated but well run areas can take this in stride and ensure their customers know they care and want their business. Right now JFBB is being run incompetently and covid is always the excuse for bad behavior. Covid *does not let you treat your customers like garbage*. I still expect professionalism and a desire to you know, allow people to have a good time skiing. And look, I barely got on the snow at all today. I had the morning and needed to be back in Philly this afternoon. Unfortunately, I spent about 90% of that time in line. This year I did not purchase a season pass. I figured, with covid restrictions maybe it'd be better to cut down on my days out, maybe check out a few other mountains as well. I wasn't sold on buying an Epic Pass so maybe see how JFBB felt this year under Vail and then buy in next season. Plus points if they managed covid in stride. So much for that. The lodge at JF had a total of four ticket windows available. Because "CDC regulations only allows us that many" said a rep trying to assuage people standing in line for up to two hours. No, you can open more customer service space if you're creative and still follow CDC guidelines. You're just lazy and went "well we can only have half the ticket windows open, guess we can't do anything else about it!". Set up tables in the lodge that are socially distanced, but for crying out loud do *something*. This isn't your first day! Apparently these lines have been common, and still no ideas on how to deal with the lines? It wouldn't even be such a problem if Epic Pass holders weren't in line with us! Yes, that's right, you had to go to the ticket windows with the rest of us schlubs to pick up your season pass. Give them all your info, etc. and hold up everyone for the 5-10 minutes per person it took to process and hand out each season pass. Apparently these were supposed to go out by mail, but many didn't receive them. So here we are. No separate season pass/day pass lines. Just all crushed together in the same giant crowd, spreading the rona. And the wait was intolerable. It took 2+ hours today. Online people were saying they waited up to 3 hours. That is not acceptable under any circumstances. And when somebody questioned why there wasn't an "express" line as promised online for people who came with their ticket info prepared, a rep laughed, said "Well they must have pulled your leg!" like it was funny, and walked away. F*@king unacceptable. Only a handful of trails were open. I didn't even pay attention but they're clearly slow walking trail opening. The conditions were... fine but I mean we just got a foot of snow. Big Boulder is a joke. I thought they might just want to focus on one mountain to make operations easier during coronavirus. But they're not doing anything to keep business at JF as is and running a bunny hill at BB is a joke. I don't think I've ever had a worse experience at a ski area before. I've had a season pass with Peak at JFBB for three years. I liked it there. Yeah, JF is small, but when the conditions are on and its snowing, and you get it on one of those quiet days where its just locals its a lot of fun, and the bonus days in April are a plus as well. But I just can't in good conscience buy into it again under Vail after seeing how they treated people today. They would have a very long road to improving this situation and it just doesn't look like they're interested. Once they have your money they don't seem to care. It's a shame.

Good eye!

It is not the late, great Snowpeak if that's what you meant. This is squarely in the Poconos.

Both mountains are anachronisms in today's industry. BB should have closed down 20 years ago but found a niche with the park scene. They invested well and got lucky in that they managed to capture the park crowd. Like somebody else mentioned above, park peaked 15 years ago, so they're fighting to hold onto a small share of riders and skiers there. JF is a nice place but its still too small to be competitive as a standalone mountain. The lifts are slow, the terrain offerings are limited. Unless you get a dump of snow nobody cares that you have glades. They do draw a crowd from the surrounding vacation communities though, and they have managed to keep the mountains afloat that way without going the resort option and building hotels and water parks, which I appreciate.

Can anyone name this lost area? It's also in NEPA.

You can see what's left of Hahn Mountain here, as well as a lot of old photos courtesy of Jeff Z's great Hahn Mountain page.

RIP

More interested in the fact that there's snow on the ground up there.

Thanks! I've seen some of these on Jeff Z's Hahn Mountain page. This place had such a community behind it. It's a surprise it didn't hold out longer.

Winner winner, chicken dinner.

Ok here's another one for ya'll to guess at. Some of the old heads on here might have even made turns at this area back in the day.

I can think of a handful of areas that are going to be added to the lost ski area list, unfortunately... but I don't wanna harsh the vibe here this time of year. Everyone is getting their pre-season stoke on.

Some of them, yeah. Although the trails are usually pretty short and the pitch is easy, with a few exceptions.

Been a minute. I'm back and checking out our fair state's lost and lonesome ski areas. I had the opportunity to take a walk around the former Alpine Mountain ski area outside Stroudsburg a couple weeks ago. This area closed in 2015 and was auctioned in 2017 for the bargain price of $413,000. The last operating owners seemed to have sunk a bunch of money into the place before it closed, renovating the lodge and ski school and buying new rental equipment, among other things. The current owners have no interest in the area, or even in maintaining the property which is becoming vandalized and decrepit. Seemed like a good place to learn when it was open. Mellow pitch, not as small as some other closed areas but still small by today's standards (350 vertical feet on about 20 trails). Shame to see any area go, especially with the crowding at some of its neighbors.

I can't imagine they'll be open much longer. Whenever their next lift overhaul comes due it'll probably be the end. Either that or something major like needing to put money into the snowmaking system. It's a shame. Private areas can work but they need an ownership group that cares about skiing and who does a bunch of outreach to get the community on board with supporting their ski area. It seems to work at Saw Creek, although that is a much, much smaller operation.

Camelback doesn't allow tree skiing either so no benefit there.

Finally got around to editing video from an area I visited months ago. Kahkout Mountain was part of the Winona Lakes development near Bushkill Falls. This was one of the many private areas that popped up across the Poconos in the 1970s. This is probably one of the larger abandoned ski areas in PA, and is pretty big in general for a lost ski area. The skiable vertical drop is about 475ft, and there's about 5 ways down the mountain including two advanced trails with a good sustained steep pitch. The area was built by the same developer who was responsible for the development Shawnee Mountain and Big Bear at Masthope, as well as the private Pocono Ranchlands ski area which is actually still in operation (and features the exact same model of Borvig double chair). These private areas are a real unique feature to the Poconos, but its a shame they weren't experienced by more people before they closed.

Full video of the former Wolf Hollow Ski Area just outside Delaware Water Gap, PA.

Next time a place goes up for auction lets but a bid in.