trackbiker

There's no way they're getting any of those trails on the map they showed at their presentation to the bottom of the mountain without some serious blasting and grading. And that takes a lot of time and permitting. Isn't that resevoir at the bottom a drinking water supply? I would think that they would do the new trails when they install a new lift. Hopefully for next season.

While most people on this forum would find Spring Mtn. boring after about 2 runs, they do a great job with what they have. Thanks to the Buckman family of the Buckman ski shops shops for rescueing the mountain from the "lost" ski areas list, Spring Mountain is still the closest ski area to Philly and it's suburbs. I learned to ski there on a rope tow. My daughter learned to ski there. My niece and nephew learned to board there, as well as many other people from the Philly area. It's definitely worth at least a night visit if for nothing else but to support the sport of skiing and snowboarding and to keep a "feeder" hill alive.

They took the best blue trail on the mountain and made it into a giant terrain park. IMHO the skiers lost more than the jibbers gained.

Does this trail end at the mid-mountain crossover or will it go to the bottom? Will there be lights and snowmaking on this trail this year? Will there be any other new trails this year, or is the cutting just for realigning around the water park features?

He may even buy a Sno season pass just so he can go to the cocktail party!

Good call, the kid at Hunter realized his mistake, took responsibility for his actions, and apologized. The kid at BB shouldn't have even been on the slope, and his father is not doing him any favors. Maybe you should have given him a copy of the Responsibility Code. If it were my kid, you wouldn't have had to yell at him, I would have done it first after making sure your daughter was OK and that he had apologized. I would have asked that dumb-ass father why he wasn't with his kid, why he even let his kid on the slope without the most basic of skills, "the ability to stop", and was he such a cheap bastard that he wouldn't pay for a lesson for the kid?

November 26th at 6:36pm

GSS did a great job explaining the reasons. One other reason is that the southern Appalachians are more susceptible to convective cooling when the sun goes down. Convective cooling works like airconditioning. As the sun goes down the warm air rises up the mountain, expands and cools. While it can get colder in the southern Apps at night, conversely it generally then gets warmer again than the northern Apps during the day. That's one of the reasons why the top of Mt. Washington, NH at 6288' is above tree line, while Mt. Mitchell, NC at 6684' is not above tree line. Plus the bases of those areas in NC are at 4000'+, while the peaks of most NE resorts aren't that high.

Didn't see anything about snowmaking on their website. Temp on the site said 35F. Did you get an email about this?

elkskibum: Thanks for the summary. It's nice having imput from someone who works at an area.

Skierdaddy is right; If you're looking for terrain parks and/or require High Speed Lifts, Elk is not for you. The comparison to VT skiing that is often missed is that Elk is almost all Fall Line skiing with the exceptions of Tioga and Kickapoo. Elk is simply blessed with the best Terrain in PA. (Yes, I've skied Blue Knob.) While I'm sure that if they had the money, Elk would likely install two HS Quads yesterday, they have a loyal nitche following, and run a first class operation. While Sno may take some ticket sales in the short run out of curiousity, the typical Elk skier is not interested in terrain parks nor the biggest and baddest half-pipe in PA. Plus the top of Sno is flat. The bottom is steep. Any new top-to-bottom trails will require some serious blasting and still won't have the continous pitch of Elk. While I am optimistic about Sno, and wish them success, as a business person I have concerns about them long term. They are owned by lawyers, who charge the same fees whether they graduated at the top or bottom of their class. (Did you ever ask yours where he was in the class?) You can always "create" more billable hours; you can't create more skiers. Without getting into too many market details, with the money they are spending for a limited market, I would take the bet that 5 yrs. from now Elk will still be under the same management and Sno will be owned by Peak Resorts or Snowtime.

All of the improvements sound great. On the Sno Improvements thread, the #1 improvement listed by Sno's customer's was a New HS Lift. #2 was Better Lighting. Since there will be no HS Lift this year, I really wish that they would move Better Lighting up the priority list. For night skiers, new trails are nice, but it would be nicer to be able to see on the trails that they already have. Lighting would also improve their ability to attract the school clubs that ski at night. Sno Improvements Survey Sno never responded to my email with a link to the survey results. So I don't know if they are really listening to their customers or just doing what they want.

Wouldn't you get your vertical just as fast on a HS Quad? Do they even load 6 people/chair on weekend mornings? I've never seen that lift filled on a consistent basis. Usually 2 or 3 people/chair.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of snowmaking they can get on any new trails. Do you think they will use the old portable guns from the Montage days? Can anyone get up there to see where they are actually cutting the trails? Or is it really just the new snow tubing area?

What skierdaddy and ski said. You have to realize that the Ski Magazine survey is not a scientific nor a statistical survey. It's simply a survey of their readers. Holliday Valley, NY always ranks high in the survey. All 650 vertical feet of it. But they get half a million skier visits per year from people from western PA & NY, northeast Ohio, and from across the border in Canada. That's a lot of votes. But I bet out of those 500,000 people, less than 2% have skied Jay Peak. In reality, about the only thing you can take from the survey is that a ranked area does a better job in the category they ranked high in than other ski areas in their region. Because most of the people doing the voting don't ski anywhere else on a regular basis. People aren't going to vote for areas they have never skied, even if they are better areas, because they have no experience with them. By the way, Blue Mtn. ranked high in the east on lifts; it's a shame they won't have any new trails this year to help their downhill capacity match their uphill capacity. Elks lifts may be "slow" compared to HS lifts, but isn't the downhill part of the trip the most important, and the reason we are all there in the first place?

While I read the ski magazine gear ratings with a grain of salt (They never say anything badabout anything. Can you say advertising $$$? ), and with all of the bigger mountains in NY and New England, there is a reason Elk consistently makes the top ten in the east. I guess it is like fine wine, good oysters, or good beer. You have to acquire a taste for them. If you're still drinking Boone's Farm in a box, don't like oysters, and you're drinking cheap light, or malt liquor beer in quart bottles; nothing I can say can make you understand why Elk is in the top ten in the east.

I would have been surprised to see 7 new trails this season. Even if they get them cut, we know from the Montage days that that wouldn't mean anything unless they get snowmaking on them as well. They don't mention anything about new lighting on the website. According to the Sno Improvements Poll, that is what most customer's would like to see, after a HS Lift of course. With the lack of crowds, and no new lift this year, I would think that new lighting would be the best way to improve the skiing/riding experience this season. I sent them an email with a link to the poll and a summary of the results. Never got a response.

Buckman's Ski Shops sell discount tickets to Spring Mt. Don't know the details but I think a night ticket was $18.00 last year. That's where I learned to ski and it is 15 min. from my house, so I'll have to go at least once this season.

Bellayre has $10.00 midweek tickets during their Winterfest from Jan. 28 to Feb. 1, 2008. Plattekill offered the same deal that week. My son and I went to both resorts because we cancelled a trip to VT that week due to the lack of snow in VT that week last year.

Sno has a similar Sunday night deal. Last year it was $20.00. This year it's $22.00. Sno is still the better deal because the conditions are still good Sun. night. Blue is skied-off by lunch time. Check with your local town, borough, or township. Many offer discount vouchers to all kinds of entertainment venues including most of the PA ski areas. Discounts are in the $6.00 to $12.00 range depending on day/night and midweek/weekend. They usually post the lift ticket prices in early Dec. Here's some examples for Blue Mt. last year: Night: $22.00 vs. $29.00 Midweek Day: $33.00 vs. $42.00 Weekend Day: $41.00 vs. $49.00 Bear Creek Night ticket was $18.00 vs $27.00(?). I'm hoping Sno signs onto this program this year.

That's great news about overhauling the lifts! Any news on upgrading the lighting? Those fan guns really put out the best quality man-made snow. If the lighting gets upgraded, I'll definetely be skiing there more nights this season.

My point exactly. Since they only run both HS lifts when I don't ski there anyway, I would have personally preferred that they add new trails before the new lift, or installed another HSQ AND some new trails instead of a 6-Pack. Your point that the trails get skied off so quickly only reinforces my point of there being too much up-hill capacity verses downhill capacity. For a season pass holder like yourself, it makes sense to get there at 7:00am and ski till 10:00am on a weekend. For someone paying for a full day pass, (and usually driving a lot farther) it doesn't. I'll still ski Blue on weeknights, but I'll drive to Sno or Elk (or to NY) and ski on good conditions all day on weekends. Funny thing is, I've skied Blue the most the last several seasons, but I've never skied there on a weekend day. And that goes to back when it was called Little Gap. I'm not dissing Blue. I think it's a really well run ski area, with great snowmaking, grooming, and customer service. I realize that the park hounds love the 6-Pack, but from a skiers point of view, I'll go to Camelback or Sno on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night this coming season.

The website still says that there will be new lifts and trails for 07/08. I think they're adding some magic carpets, but there won't be any new HS lifts or trails at Sno this year.

That means that Long Haul will have to be running in order to access Lower Fast Track/Runaway without taking two lifts. I don't know if the park riders will have enough patience to ride a 12 minute lift for a park there to be used all that much even if it is a top to bottom park. Maybe they should wait until they get a HSQ and keep the parks on the top half in the mean time?

IMHO, it would have made more sense to put in a second HSQ instead of the 6-Pack and use the money saved to add some trails. As it stands now there is too much uphill capacity and not enough downhill capacity. I love the high-speed lifts but everything gets skied off too quickly during busy times.