EdBacon

9AM I got up late.

Looking at the closed trail. Not poaching just looking.

Left my bank cards at home. Had to find a bank for emergency cash to get gas. Lucky I didn't start looking around the middle of nowhere that this place is in. Big Bear still had tickets available going into the weekend and since I'm checking out Shawnee tomorrow I figured I'd get another day in somewhere. It was the only place with space available. Parking lot is paved, so I wouldn't go back anyway. Place feels more like a country club than a ski area. It used to be private, I believe. It was designed by the same guy who built Shawnee and also private vacation community ski areas like Pocono Ranchlands and Winona Lakes. Anyway, advertises 650 vert. Can't be more than 500. Snow was scratchy but not too bad. Not good though. Doesn't feel like they're aggressive with snowmaking. Not all their trails were open, including their two steepest. Terrain park was very sad. Honestly just felt like things aren't kept up so well. But then they have RFID. So the basics are not great but then they spend money on things like that. Lifts are old but so what. They have a couple cool vintage 70s Borvig doubles, one with the original towers if you're into that. The one looks like it never runs anymore. Got yelled at twice by a 16 year old ski patroller. Started singing on the lift ride for entertainment. Feels like their business is mostly people who still own in the community, and they're content with that. There just doesn't seem to be a ton of effort compared to other hills in the area. The lodge is very nice though, and looks like they dropped a bunch of money on it. Wouldn't recommend even if you wanted a mountain to learn at as there's just nothing else going on, and the snow quality is inferior to other Poconos hills which have the added benefit of more terrain variety. And look, size isn't everything but what you do with it. They just don't do anything with what they do have. Also paved parking lot which sucked. That 16 year old would probably yell at you for tailgating too.

Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed CBK for years. When I started snowboarding again after college CBK was my home mountain for three seasons while I was living in north Jersey. It has a good lift and trail layout. I was never that bothered by shorter steep pitch because you can lap the trails easy enough, and its really degrees of hair splitting given the competition in the area in my mind. The snow is a little more consistent than Blue imo. The old terrain park setup was creative, sort of self contained with its own lift and they had that street art program for the park features which made it feel unique. But after the hotel opened and I was dodging parents in sneakers with three year olds in tow walking to the mountain coaster, the crowds, the over zealous patrol and parking lot crackdowns I just had enough. To me, at least before Vail took over JF was so much better. Slower pace, no circus and less distractions. The slow lifts never bothered me. My favorite mountains like Platty and Magic are all old slow lifts. They're also laid back quiet places where you just go to ski and maybe tailgate after. That's just my speed and JF was closer to that than CBK.

Only the old heads will remember Sharp Mountain. This is the area from above, right on the west side of Pottsville. The ski area has been greatly altered by coal mining since closing in 1973.

CB is more amusement park than ski area now.

I won't ride a mountain with a paved lot as a rule.

No.

Gonna ice up.

Wait until they have a solid base of natural snow. When Platty is on it is really on.

Give it a freeze/thaw cycle or two. It turns bulletproof and given the pitch anything fresh ends up sliding off.

Don't drop in off the snowmaking mound on Rivershot. If you're "looking over the edge" you shouldn't drop in. You want to start skiers right in the flatter area above the headwall on Rivershot. You ski with the ice cliff on your left. The pitch is still fairly steep and there's a small ledge to drop over the steepest bit, but it holds snow much better. People do occasionally send it off of RIvershot but they either just got done making a ton of snow that has bound well and not slid off, a massive dump of fresh snow, or they're just insane. I have witnessed all three.

Right geographic area, but this place was closed just a couple years after Ski Cove opened.

Only the old heads will know this place. I wonder if anyone here has actually skied it when it was open. Clue: the lodge is still open.

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.