jdrob2ski

Great TR! Elk was really skiing great on Sat, best opening weekend I can remember. And with the cold weather back they should be able to have a good amount of the mountain open in the next 2 weeks.

Was at the mountain today, decided to blow off work and come up yesterday afternoon, got to the area around 7, snow already everywhere. Now onto the skiing: the mountain opened today at 10 with only a few trails groomed, and everything else with between a foot and almost two and a half feet of snow depending on when it was groomed yesterday. Let's just say it was epic. Like knee to waist deep epic for the first few runs. I have some pics ill try and post up later, hope some other people can chime in on today's awesomeness.

Because the snow is perfect and the crowds are light, I took a few cell phone pics for the fun of it. Here it goes... On the main lift going up Upper Seneca The Snow Bowl (Bottom of north side trails) Upper Tunkhannock... The bumps are kinda small but starting to form Susquehanna and the East Slope Middle of the Chippewa looking up Looking down Tecumseh Tuscarora headwall Mid Delaware and the Delaware terrain park Looking down Mahican Skis for the day I took a few more pics, but apparently my phone didnt like them. Oh well. Almost the entire mountain is open, except for a few trails, and they look to be open by the weekend. Time to get it while its good. Awesome day.

Was just about to do a TR from today, but will add to here instead... Today was prob the coldest and windiest day I have ever skied in PA, and maybe anywhere. It was COLD. And really really windy. However the snow was holding up very nice, they blew on close to everything that is open last nigh after not being able to since the storm. Unfortunately I dont think anything else will open up until later in the week, they have been trying to get the base up on the open trails. If the wind dies down tomorrow should be excellent, after another night of snowmaking and some natural falling right now.

Great pics man, skiing today was great. Good snow, and even more terrain to open up tomorrow. Where the hell did you sleep to get those pics at the half-way house? In the actually half-way house? lol

If they were indeed blowing on that much then I retract my previous statement, good for them. Also, the Elk head in the bar is gone? WHY???

Oh I know, just wishing I could ski more than just the same couple trails till mid jan. I have no problem with them not wanting to be camelback or hunter. /shudders And the snow sounds like the typical early season variable. I was worried that the rain/ice storm wrecked havoc. Cookies are relative, I've spent enough time skiing at blue, so as long as its white I'm good.

How was the snow? Anyone else there today want to chip in? Also, as a mini rant: not blowing during the day midweek is the the thing that drives me absolutely crazy every year. I know PP&L likes to jack up the rates hard during normal business hours monday to friday but with the constant cold we have they can get half the damn mountain open by christmas if they want. I know that they will blow during the daytime hours mid-week later in the season but it still drives me nuts that they dont when they are actually trying to get the mountain open. I know its all about the money but if they get more open earlier then maybe they will get more ppl which = more money. -End Rant-

Thats the one problem with Elk getting trails open early season, Im pretty sure if you took the width of Susquehanna and Tunkhannock and combined them you would get 5 normal trails... I still cant for the life of me figure out why they widened Susquehanna 10 feet. Between those 2 and Slalom you could have a nice sized area, haha Also it looks from the pictures that they were blowing on upper and lower Tunk as well as the Lack Spur, hopefully they will be open Wednesday. (Although with the rain prob not until the weekend) Dont know for sure though.

Anyone know what they are planning to open up with?

Elk has a 100 day season guarantee for season pass holders, to the point that they will refund a fraction of the money spent if they dont get to 100. (Happens once in a while with bad years, they only get to 96 so they refund 4/100 of the pass price) Because they usually close on a Sat in March, a Wednesday to Sat schedule lets them close on a March Sat with right at (or over) 100 days. They have opened during the week for as long as I can remember. Edit: Ok so I cant count... if they open Wednesday 100 days will take them to march 25, not a Saturday. The previous Sat (the 20th) would be 95 days. To make sure they have 100 days and close on a Sat would be March 27, 102 days. So technically they could have opened Friday. Who knows, although as I said they always seem to like to open up mid-week no matter what.

Elk might be nice but Vermont did get snow while we got freezing rain, so um... But seriously Im so pumped for opening, should get up there for Friday. Hopefully they should have more open then just Susq and Tioga, I knew they were looking at Upper and Lower Tunk last week but with the 2 ice/rain events the last few days who knows now. Didnt see their new picture of the day, wow that looks nice.

Ok, since I helped the thread go off topic ill help bring it back... according to people in the area the storm dumped around 4-6 inches, depending who you talk to, with some rain and snow showers off and on during the day yesterday. Snowmkaing is supposedly going nicely, they never really planned on opening this weekend anyway but should have plenty of coverage on the trails they are blowing on by at the latest Sunday, which gives them a few days to move around the piles/ make more as needed but also lets them start to focus on the next set of trails to open. My guess is that if the forecast holds they should open with Susquehanna, Tioga, East, West, Beginners, and Upper and Lower Tunkhannock, with probably (hopefully) something else open for the weekend. The problem is that they are notoriously slow to open up trails until Christmas week, from a combination of the fact that their major trails are so damn wide and them being cheap until the people start to show. So pretty much, who knows what will happen in the next week or so, but ill try to get as many updates that I know of on here. If any one else knows more concrete info be sure to add it.

Clarks Summit is probably the best bet if you want a normal hotel, and its about a 30/35 min drive. There are a lot of great bed and breakfast style places around the mountain, but you have to like that kinda atmosphere. Stonebridge is a great hotel/ lodge 3 miles down the road that is really nice but somewhat expensive. Anywhere else you do run the risk of it being "creepy" as you said, welcome to Susquehanna county

Sadly it seems like Sno management wants to do everything the hard way, so blowing snow into the lazy river seems like a good idea for them. Times like this it almost makes me long for when the county ran the mountain, and then I think about what Im saying and punch myself in the face. Whatever it looks to be really cold for the next few days so lets see what they do.

Hopefully the rain will stay away from PA for the most part... lets hope Blue can still open this weekend no matter what happens.

It seems like they are going to open next week... Im not that surprised, as the only people likely to show up if they open this weekend will be season pass holders or employees, so really no reason for them to open up. It takes forever to cover the west slope and susquehanna and they really like to get down a big base on the major trails, so therefore it takes a while to do so. It sucks cause I would have liked skiing at Elk this weekend. Ah well, lets hope for a good winter nonetheless.

Anybody know what trails they have been blowing on? (and therefore what they will open with) Is it just the upper mountain or are one or two trails on the north face being worked on as well? It seems the last few years they've done something different each time.

I wouldn't be shocked that they open Friday or Saturday. As long as the system on Wednesday doesn't reek havoc I would bet on a weekend opening. Hope for snow!

Stopped in at the mountain today, they were blowing on all the usually preseason trails: susquehanna, west, east, tioga, and beginners. However they needed to stop around noon time like it seems everyone else did cause of the temps. The natural snow is still falling, they must have around 4 inches by now. I assume snowmaking should be resuming at any moment.