impressions of mt creek, TR from monday

[rgrwilco]

although minimal terrain was open, there was quite a bit of snow made, and large piles on the trails that were not opened. a few days of snowmaking and alot more terrain will open up.

 

the south peak quad was absolutely booking. fast as hell, especially later in the night. deepest base depth on the open trails ive ever seen at creek. the rails set up were way to easy and ride on, but there were a few in a hikeable section that were urban style. the cabriolet still sucks.

 

im very impressed what they did with south. the whole mt creek south persona going on, with the paint on the doors and the revamped lodge is really cool. the lodge was clean and being a park rider, i can definately say it had more personality than a normal lodge with the new paint and whatnot.

 

there is a sign on the street as you cross from the parking lot to the lodge that says "you are now entering the largest terrain park in the east". we will see how this pans out, but i am hopeful and i believe they will pull of some good parks this season. i will be back, probobly in february, to see how the whole south/bear park only thing works out. if every trail is seriously a well planned and executed park, then the words "holy shit" will be uttered. i forgot how large of an area the 2 peaks make up.

 

props to creek, i like what i see so far. now all they have to do is cut some more trails on granite to replace the non park trails that were on south and bear. and get rid of the cabriolet.

[method9455]

How many runs do they have open??? It's cool that they have the largest terrain park in the east...Parklogic apparently did good things for them..

 

not past tense at all. It was JibLab before, during, and after the Parklogic fiasco at JFBB. Those guys know how to make rails and setup things better than anyone else. Boulder still has good setups, but I don't have much faith in their ability to build new rails. I haven't seen much for this year except a flat rail and a concrete ledge that was "new". They never really posted pictures and stuff like Jiblab does. We'll see once the season pans out but right now Boulder is just the stuff the JibLab guys made for them as far as I can tell. Bear makes good stuff, but they don't have enough snow to be as creative as the mountain creek guys. I'm definately looking forward to see what happens. Mountain Creek is a monster, it takes a while to get rolling but come mid february their park will destroy everything in PA. It is just too late in the year to work out for my season (Dec 15 - Feb 15) most years, but this year it probably would. Hopefully they will turn it around.

 

And all the bitching you hear about the changes - look at the people at creek. They are either noobies on Horizon all day at vernon, or park riders, with 10% of the customers being good skiers. The 3 new trails open on vernon are intermediate, perfect to take the load off horizon. South will keep all the park guys off the lift on Vernon which is packed with beginners. The guys who are good show up 8-12 on the weekends anyway and jet by lunch, hit up granite, vernon, a little of bear and they're done there won't be any park guys awake yet anyway. It should be good.

[Jessica Anne]

i rode mountain creek monday, i can't wait to see what the mountain is like later in the season =)

[JaySkisBig]

What is a TR?

[Schif]

What is a TR?

 

TR=Trip Report

[NJSkiBabe]

TR=Trip Report

 

The new South terrain park did nothing to take the snowboarders off the other trails. They are still sitting all over the place.

 

The bubble tents at the Vernon base are disgusting. The bubbles were only supposed to be "temporary". Ten years is NOT temporary in my book. Instead of trying to sell condos and a hotel - how about building a new lodge first?

 

Where is Ski Patrol and why aren't they doing their job to make sure the slopes are safe for everyone?

[rgrwilco]

The new South terrain park did nothing to take the snowboarders off the other trails. They are still sitting all over the place.

 

The bubble tents at the Vernon base are disgusting. The bubbles were only supposed to be "temporary". Ten years is NOT temporary in my book. Instead of trying to sell condos and a hotel - how about building a new lodge first?

 

Where is Ski Patrol and why aren't they doing their job to make sure the slopes are safe for everyone?

 

-not all of the boarders are going to go to south. only the park riders.

 

-real estate=income. they need income for the new lodge. a new lodge was not the origional upgrades since there was one, thus money was not set aside for it. plus, they needed snowmaking upgrades badly. whats the point of a lodge without snow?

 

-theres only so much ski patrol can do when there are a shit ton of humans falling down hill. even if they tried, im sure some guido in jeans would start some shit with him.

[method9455]

-not all of the boarders are going to go to south. only the park riders.

 

-real estate=income. they need income for the new lodge. a new lodge was not the origional upgrades since there was one, thus money was not set aside for it. plus, they needed snowmaking upgrades badly. whats the point of a lodge without snow?

 

-theres only so much ski patrol can do when there are a shit ton of humans falling down hill. even if they tried, im sure some guido in jeans would start some shit with him.

 

-True, and no reason they shouldn't be everywhere, there are more snowboarders than skiers at mountain creek by a large margin. Its probably 70/30

 

-There is a lodge in the plans for the village, but who knows what will happen. They didn't build a lodge before because they planned on building this whole village, now that Intrawest got sold I have no idea what the plans are, the timeline, or anything. Obviously they aren't done with lodge improvements, they sunk a bunch into South. That said, it is an embarrasment that they still have the tents up. At least get some new tents once in a while they where not ment to stand for this long, upgrade to something with better ventalation its brutal. Luckily I never spend time in the lodge. It kind of worked before since Vernon was park rats who don't care and South was higher end skiers and it still had a lodge, but now free riding skiers just get screwed every way possible from the bad parking to the later opening to the worse terrain to the worst lodge to the worst lift.

 

-Mountain Creek, VV/GG has been, was, will be, insanely crowded. It is the closest mountain to NYC, the only major ski hill in the most densly populated state in the country, and it has a layout that doesn't help much by funneling everyone back to the same 4 lifts. It sucks, and it always will. More lifts would just crowd the trails even more. If they had added more trails AND more lifts, it would be just as crowded but fewer people would go out 80 to PA, so it would be even more people, just divided over a bigger area. I think it just gets crowded to the point where people just say "we are going to spend so much time in lift lines, lets just driver further to Hunter or Camelback", and so it levels itself back to this insane level of crowdedness that is only slightly less insane than what it could be.

 

There is nothing they can do to change 1 and 3, but 2 is certainly a failing of Intrawest. Not to mention many believe it was very convenient for the lodge to burn down as soon as Intrawest took over. Now they "need a village" because they "need a lodge". Imagine if they tried to knock it down themselves and left us with no lodge for 10 years? How pissed would people be? At least now they can say "it wasn't us" (yea right).

[JaySkisBig]

I just hope that racing will be held at Hidden Valley next year so I can say BUH BYE to Mountain Crack once and FOR ALL!!!!