rgrwilco

According to alpine zone, Gregg Confer is the manager at elk. And according to Gregg confer, elk is for sale (as of June 10th).

https://www.media.pa.gov/pages/DCNR_details.aspx?newsid=1039 potential "new" touring area in PA. 2500 acres, with logging roads, 1300 vertical foot pipeline cut, and some old ski trails. I did read one article that mentioned opening it up to skiing, biking, and hiking. I would be neat if they allowed some glade clearing like some of the touring associations do in new england.

I did the same. I bough a mountain creek pass, which is nice and was thinking about doing indy too.

With this new modern lift ticket situation, do you still need to park and get into that cattle truck? or is their a kiosk at the lift next to the lot you can redeem at?

Sheeeit, even a modern quad with carpet loading would improve the place drastically. If I owned a ski area and was thinking of selling, I would probably use used parts to get the lift up and running just to make it until the sale is completed.

They seem to doing well. They plan on bringing some old trails back to life, and add another lift to vernon peak. they are making a 5 million dollar investment into automated snowmaking this season as well. In terms of shorter season, it depends on the year. for 19/20, blue and creek opened on the same date, and closed on the same date due to covid shutdowns, and in 20/21 blue opened 5 days earlier and closed a day earlier. But there are some years where blue opens almost a month before hand. Weather is weird.

That's a hell of a price. Hunter sold to Peak Resorts for 36 million in 2015. If that's true I would have to guess there's a bunch of land that came with it.

Just an FYI if anyone is looking for a cheap pass. They allow uphill and open an hour early for passholders on weekends. not a bad deal at all.

This is true. I wonder what the plans for blue will be another version of camelback or if blue remains the "ski area" of the two. The guy did say they have 42 lanes of tubing. That must print money faster than the Fed.

-Just talks in circles about waterparks. -had no idea camelback charged 75 dollars to replace a lost season pass. -repeatedly told the host of the podcast that the host knows more about lifts/infrastructure at camelback than he did. not a good look for a GM. I listen to the podcast on long car rides, and every other GM from any ski area knows the ins and outs of their operation. I don't know if I’ll finish this one.

If you want a dumpster fire of a listen, and want to know why camelback sucks so much, here ya go. The GM doesn’t even know his own mountain’s policies. I’m pretty sure he ski blades in jeans. https://www.stormskiing.com/p/podcast-162-camelback-managing-director

Any rumors as to who bought it?

T-Mobile is the move. Free roaming on ATT towers, free roaming and high speed data in North America (Mexico, Canada), the Caribbean, and Asia. I often have full bars of T-Mobile 5g when my friends with Verizon have nothing.

Ah I see. I’m hoping montage allows uphill eventually too. I talked to someone there and they mentioned it may happen. That would be killer for the epic pass.

How does uphill work with Indy at Shawnee? Do you have to get your ticket first? How does that work if you arrive before ticket windows are open?

I’m not a gondola naysayer by any means, but when it was announced there was a ton of hate towards it. I would have preferred it to be something like wildcats setup with gondola cabins in summer and a chairs in winter. When the rest of their buildout is complete it will definitely make more sense.

It’s also fairly controversial that ORDA operates those areas. Having the backing of the NY state government means they can invest millions annually into projects that may see frivolous to some (the belleayre gondola for an example). This is creating an issue where the state run ski areas are competing against private businesses. The owners of plattekill are not too happy about that, and rightly so, as people have to drive past belleayre with their shiny new lifts to get to a smaller ski areas whose investments are directly related to how many skier visits they get rather than how much tax revenue the state brings in. As for Elk…I feel like there have been rumors about the sale for years but it never happens. It may be more that elk is a fairly big ski area for PA, and other areas of that size are being gobbled up by epic and ikon such as camelback and blue. I would expect blue and camelback to be full ikon within a few years to compete with vails stranglehold on PA. I could see vail being at least interested in elk as their only pocono areas are JFBB which are super small. Ikon is the superior product in the pocono-ish area.

Montage now has a dedicated page on their site. States coming 2025. Updated renderings look nice. I Would still prefer a high speed top to bottom lift. https://www.montagemountainresorts.com/hotel/

I sure hope not. Dealing with vail has led me to ride less. My experience at hunter a few weeks back was so atrocious I haven’t ridden since. Elk seems to be doing fine the way they are. that being said, the place is not used to its potential. Mountain biking and other summer events would be great there. if it was to get sold, I would hope it’s to the family that owns catamount and Berkshire east. It would be on a multi-pass but not of epic proportions. And those dudes have done fantastic stuff at Berkshire, catamount, and bosquet.

This might be windhams last year on ikon, so I would check that place out.

Their webcams look pretty solid. Base looks good, lots of snow, and a ton of guns going. They look in better shape than some of the New England areas. its like skiing in Vermont, but with more snow.

It will absolutely increase crowds. Maybe it will light a fire under blues ass to get that expansion going.

Wish I knew in the spring, I would have gone ikon instead of epic. next year I guess

The only ski area with a view looking west towards hunter would be Cortina Valley.