trackbiker

How were the crowds?

I'm thinking with his anger management issues that he's either in jail or the insane asylum. So you should be safe to go back to Sno.

Don't know about the crowds but if there are any they will have well managed lift lines and because of their extensive trail network the conditions will hold out much longer than CB, Blue, or JFBB. Their "slow" lifts will get you to the top faster than if you are standing in lines at CB or Blue. I'll be there Friday.

Good plan. I'll be at Elk Friday. Great conditions, well managed "crowds". CB and Blue will be a $hit$how all week. This week is a good time to check out Sno as well and avoid the once or twice a year goobers at the other areas. Since I don't have a season pass, paying $50+ for two hours of skiing is not an option or something that I want to do anyway.

Snow in the customer's back yard always brings more people than snow on the mountain.

Sno is a good uncrowded alternative to the $hit$how that will be Camelback and Blue this week when the once a year hoards arrive after the wind ends on Wednesday and Thursday. Great snowmaking and grooming. It is kind of a funky area. Really two areas. The top of the mountain and the North Face. The North Face has some nice steeps about the same length as CB without the flat runout. Blues black diamonds are longer but not as steep. The lifts are slow but you'll get to the top faster because you won't have to wait in line for 10 to 30 minutes and it doesn't get scraped down as fast as CB and Blue. You can go at night and the conditions are still good but the lighting sucks. Have they made any improvements to the lights?

Thanks for the reply g15. The question was in the post you quoted, "...is it(the 3 for $60.00 night ticket) good on the weekends?" or is it like the 3 for $90.00 day ticket and only good for weekdays? Can you use all three at the same time for 3 different people or is good only for the person on the order? Like I said, there is very little information in regards to restrictions or even if there are any. Since most ski areas have holiday/weekend restrictions that would be good info to include so people weren't leary to buy. Doesn't really matter now. The offer was only good until today. But for future reference that info should be included somewhere in the offer. JFBB had a lot more tickets available on the CBSLocal offer than Sno. I think the JFBB offer was for a certain time frame and Sno's was for a limited number of tickets. Must have been very limited because they sold out fast and I don't think that was because the sales were higher than JFBB's sales.

Looking forward to getting up there one day next week. I'm trying to figure which day will be least crowded. If we get snow Sun./Mon. all the gapers will be out Monday or Tuesday. Snow in the backyard always brings out the once or twice a year skiers. Last year Wed. of Christmas was the most crowded with cars parking down the road at CB and Blue but the snow could affect that this year.

I agree with everyone's post above. Sno is a bit of an odd duck. The trails at the top are flat and all the same. The North Face has some interesting trails with a constant pitch but are relatively short. Their prices are too high for what they offer and where they are. They do need to offer some discounts to get people to drive the extra miles and to check the place out. Diehard skiers will keep going to Elk as will I for a day trip. I like Sno for a weekend night session but the lighting sucked in the past. Does anyone know if they made any improvements this year? That said, next week is a great time to check it out. When Blue and Camelback have people parking down the roads and are scraped off by 10:00am, Sno will have good conditions into the night. Slow lifts are a relative thing. If you are waiting 10 minutes for a 5 min. ride to the top on a HSQ, at Sno you can ski right on and be at the top in less time. The only other problem is the lodge. It is too small and is usually packed with mom, dad, and grandmom hanging out while junior is tubing. The restaraunt/bar doesn't seem so crowded but I don't really hang out in the lodge anyway. The 3 nights for $60 is a great deal but I wouldn't know about it if it weren't for this thread. I may take advantage of it but as usual their website doesn't have much info. Is it good for weekends? The 3 for $90.00 day tickets are only for weekdays which has no interest to me or most of the people who haven't been there. They really need to figure out their marketing or they will be bought at auction by Peak Resorts or Snowtime.

Thanks for the report. Looking to get up between Christmas and New Years. Elk can be crowded on holidays but not nearly as crowded as Blue or Camelback. They manage the crowds they get well and the mountain has a lot of trails that are spread out. Doesn't get scraped off as fast as Blue or Camelback if the expert trails get skied off at all.

Great report and pics! Elk is definitely worth the drive and the money when they are 100% open.

The deal doesn't come up on the link right away today. You have to click on "Featured Deals" and a thumbnail will come up with a bunch of other deals, one of them the JFBB $25.00 tickets.

ectobar, thanks for posting the link! Great deal! Meant to get there last season. Now I'll definitely get there this season.

Monday is $10.00 off for Mens Day. Tuesday is Business Person's Day; show a business card and get $10.00 off. (if you don't have one you can make one.) If the college ID works you get $10.00 off every midweek day. Check the local township recreation department. Most sell discount tickets to local ski areas but they usually don't go on sale until late December. Midweek tickets are the best deals of course. I skied 20 days last year including 8 in Vermont and 2 in Utah. I paid full price on 2 days, both in PA during holiday periods when it's hard to scoop discounts. The deals are there if you know where to look. I'm always suprised how many people don't take advantage of discounts that are readily available.

Don't know if you are going as couple, with family, or alone. Mid week or weekend or how cheap you are looking for. If you are going midweek it's hard to beat the ski-and-stay deals offered by VT areas. I used to be amazed that people would find a "great" rate at a fleabag motel and then pay full price for a lift ticket and think they got a deal. Most of the midweek ski-and-stay packages cost the same for a nice hotel room or condo (depending on how many are in your party)plus a lift ticket as you would pay per person just for a lift ticket. So essentially you get to stay in a nice place for free. If you are going on a weekend or holiday it is a different story. Haven't stayed her but it comes highly recommended by a friend I trust. If the ski and stay doesn't work for you, you may want to check out the Turn of the River Lodge

jordan, thanks for the link! I'll likely use both of these. Not too often you get a FREE ticket and the Kmart B1G1 is good for weekends. I used the Stratton ticket the two (or was it three) years that they did it.

Anyone heard anything on Tanglwood? The website is no longer up and they're not listed on the SkiPA website.

Sounds like a good plan since you're seeing family as well. I used to work for a German company and went to Munich several times per year. I'm not much for tourist traps but the Hofbrahaus is an authentic brewhouse and is much nicer in winter when there aren't so many tourist around. Great place for meeting people from all over the world. Lot's of nice Christmas markets on and off the Maximilianstrasse pedestrian area. Have fun.

Why limit yourself to Germany? You can get to Austria and Switzerland about as fast on the train from northern Germany. Someplaces in Austria and Switzerland maybe even faster. Check out the prices and the schedules. Have fun. Skiing in Europe is a different experience. The food and beer are about as important as the skiing.

Well it fits their system. It's already lined with fan guns on the upper mountain anyway. They would likely do very well with Sno. Their formula for running those day tripper resorts in the midwest would likely transfer well to Sno. Snowtime who runs Whitetail, Roundtop, and Ski Liberty might bid as well. Windham didn't fit their mix. Seems they weren't able to make the transition like Peaks did to destination resorts? They might also have some cash available from that Windham sale.

Good point. They do seem pretty open minded. I think they are looking for this kind of info. I do disagree with their Killington vertical. While most regulars don't do it, you can ski the whole vertical without stopping. I do it every time I ski there. If you pick some alternate trails from Great Eastern it's a fun run and you can ski it pretty fast. My friends always complain that I do it without stopping. That's the only way I want to do it. Haven't been there since the new owners took over and realigned some trails but I think you can still do it without poling. Hope to get back there this year.

The USGS maps are actually very accurate. If you are refering to the Google terrain maps you are correct. I don't know how their program works but they tend to "flatten" mountains. The bottom altitudes are usually pretty close but the top of the mountains are generally listed as lower than the actual altitude. You're right that the maps often miss little "bumps" but they always include the highest point on a mountain. I had to zoom out in a lot of cases to include the top and bottom of the ski area and the altitude lines. The USGS maps have been updated over the years as technology improves but the corrections have usually been pretty small. If you've ever seen one of those round brass markers at the top of a mountain, they're the guys that put it there as a reference point. You're right about the mountains not being verified. What's the point of that website if they're just going to copy what the areas trail map or website says?

OK, here's the real scoop on some local verticals. I generously estimated the top and bottom of lifts to give the areas the most optomistic verticals. Camelback claims 800' Actual is about 780'. Not to much of a stretch. I'd let them slide and round to 800'. Bear Creek claims 510'. Actual is about 480'. I'd let them slide with rounding to 500' but where did they get the 510'? I'm guessing it is leftover from when it was Doe Mountain. Shawnee claims 700' Actual is 660'. 700' is a bit of a stretch. Big Boulder claims 475'. Actual is about 400'. I'm sure this exaggeration goes back to at least the '60's. Spring Mountain claims 420'. Actual is 360'. Their Rock Top chair has a vertical of 343' according to skilifts.org. My thinking is the original owners added 100' to the original side. And the winner for exaggerating their vertical in PA is.....Jack Frost. The actual is likely less than 500' but they claim 600'. Did they just add 100'? It was even less when it originally opened. One from NY. Greek Peak claims 952' Actual is less than 800'. They have the potential for about 832' with the expansion that they've been planning for 30+ years but to ski it you would have to traverse a lot of flat terrain. I don't blame some mountains for stretching to the next 100' if they are past the X50' mark. But to add over 100 is really a stretch. Vertical is only a guide. Most people even on bigger mountains spend the day skiing a pod with much less vertical than the mountain offers. If the terrain is good and you enjoy it, who cares what the vertical is? I sometimes like lapping fun terrain on a smaller mountain.

Most of the mid size and smaller mountains stretch the vertical. They measure from the top of the flag pole on the summit to the bottom of the well at the base. Blue Mt., Sno, and Blue Knob are exceptions. Even before Blue Mt. and Sno gave them competition Blue Knob reported the actual vertical. IIRC Elk is about 970'. Not too much of an exaggeration. Bear Creek, Spring Mt., Jack Frost, and Alpine Mt. all exaggerate the vertical. I have the real verticals somewhere. I'll try to find them and post them. I'm out of town for the next few days so it may not be until the weekend. Google Maps is not all that accurate as far as vertical. They tend to understate vertical. The best source is the USGS survey maps.

" Email they sent me says top to bottom run off of chair 1. Trail map shows they are all greens " My mistake. I took you post to mean that all of the trails off of that lift were green. Actually that's the only green path you can take down from chair one. And like others have noted, it's still a fun run. Narrow and twisting at the top. Would be a blue anywhere in PA.