Elk - 2/16 TR

[GolfingOwl]

Another great day at Elk. Maybe it is me, but everytime I have hit Elk in the past 5 years it has either snowed the night before or was snowing on ski day. The snow the night before left a dusting but during the day, it was pretty constant adding a couple of inches of fresh on top of the crunchy groomed snow. Trail edges had fresh untracked and also helped soften the bump runs a little. Crowds were minimal and only a minute or two wait at the lift in front of the lodge (they only had one of the doubles open). I was there the same day (Tuesday after President's day) last year and last year was more crowded - probably the snow kept people away (go figure).

 

My 8 year old son and I skied mostly blacks and hit all three bump runs. Chippewa was our favorite but Mohawk skied nice too. There were only a few spots on each trail where the ice was real hard between the bumps, mostly is was of the soft, edgable variety. Tunkhannock was the iciest of the three and also the busiest traffic-wise. Also, the bumps seemed to vary in size from one side to the other so it wasn't too difficult finding a comfort zone depending on ability. This was my son's first real experience skiing true mogul runs and he kept wanting to go back to the bump runs. Groomed runs skied fast with crunchy hardpack. Only ice was on trails that weren't groomed from the night before. Overall, conditions were really good.

 

Elk is truly the jem of Eastern PA skiing. Now, if they only had glade skiing.......

[GolfingOwl]

By glades, I mean marked tree runs. Elk's policy is you can't ski the trees and there are markers everywhere. I'm not a poacher, especially with an 8 year-old in tow. My son was disappointed we couldn't ski the tress as he loves when we ski tree runs in Vermont. Even he was pointing out great lines in the trees.

 

I understand the potential liability issues (though other PA mountains such as JF alow tree skiing), but with Elk's vibe, expert heavy clientelle (they have 3 ungroomed blacks), and more natural snow they seem to get you would think that they would seriously consider some marked gladed areas. A more liberal policy, such as not enforcing tree skiing, would be an alternative but maybe that is just too risky in PA from a legal standpoint.

[GolfingOwl]

As far as I know they do. In fact, my son followed one of the paths kids take on the side of trails through the trees and a patroller told him skiing in the trees wasn't allowed (mys son said the patroller was nice about it but I was down hill a bit so didn't witness the encounter).

 

I like marked tree runs (unmarked are great too, but there is a benefit to having both). Certainly they are more tracked out than unmarked but the snow tends to be softer than what you find on the groomers and they add a lot of fun and variety to just staying on the groomers all day. They are also safer as they are typically patrolled, which is an issue for me when skiing with my son. Would be great if Elk did what the New England mountains do, have both marked tree runs and a policy of ski where you want to but I doubt that will happen so I would take marked runs over the current policy.

[Ride Delaware ?]

I guess it depends on which patrollers are there, how much they care, and how busy the mountain is... Last year I went in the woods right in front of one of the two ski patrollers there and he didn't question me... I wouldn't do it on a weekend, but they don't have the manpower to really enforce it... It was fun making my own lines off the quad... Nothing too extreme, but fun... The bottom line is that its basically 50-50... If you get caught, you get caught... Risk vs reward... It was worth it to me...