first time at Mtn Creek

[Timeless]

As a CB local and not a park oriented snowboarder I thought I'd post a few thoughts on Creek having spent the afternoon and early evening there yesterday.

 

1) The conditions were about as bad as I've ridden on in 2 years (>50days across PA and VT), lots of trails closed (some with no snow on them at all!), the open ones icy and scraped off with big dark patches and the odd rock showing.

 

2) There were no liftlines, we stayed mostly on the south "mountain" and could ride onto the quads with no wait all day/evening.

 

3) There were too many hopelessly bad skiers / riders on blue / black runs that were way beyond them.

 

4) The place feels very big and could expand to many more trails if they wanted to, but they seem to have very little snowmaking facilities away from the showpiece park/pipes so this is not going to happen.

 

5) The trails feel long and have nice pitch variation ond "features", they make good use of the vertical feet they have, which is much more than CB.

 

6) The park features are amazingly diverse and well looked after, I tried my first (ever) real jump on a mini-park on the side of south peak (and managed to both clear the table top and land it ). This is obviously MC's main strength and focus (though absolutely not mine).

 

7) The base area and carparking was good, decent facilities and evrything close at hand.

 

Overall I had a good afternoon, but came away wondering how good the place could be if they had the snowmaking facilities to really cover the acreage they have reliably.

[stevePSSC]

yeah they could use some better snowmaking.. i was up at MC this morning and the park was soo sick! haha the best its been all year

[poconoceancity]

Good report...I should really try it sometime. I've never boarded in my own state.

[method9455]

did you see the main park? I agree with you the snowmaking system isn't quite up to par with the rest of the area although realize they have more slightly more acreage than the other areas, but its spread out over a huge ridge. South is really far away from vernon, so the snowmaking is super decentralized. You can't have the same people working the trails you need at least twice as many, which is costly, but more important you have to pressurize way more pipe. The trail that connects granite to south takes a huge amount of snow on a long run and costs so much just to do that. Not saying I think its a good thing, i hate how shitting the snow is. But thats just the facts, they don't attract many more people than the other mountains but it costs a lot more to make snow, and with the marginal temperatures this year a huge amount of snow was diverted to the Grand Prix, enough to cover those bare trails and more than enoughto cover the bare spots. If it weren't for the Grand Prix there probably wouldn't be a half pipe and there would be better snow everywhere else.

[setagehtta]

they don't attract many more people than the other mountains

 

Ever been to MC on a weekend?!

[stevePSSC]

haha for the past two seasons ive avoided the weekends.. i only go weekday mornings

 

the weekends get soooo crowded haha

[parkbuilder]

did you see the main park? I agree with you the snowmaking system isn't quite up to par with the rest of the area although realize they have more slightly more acreage than the other areas, but its spread out over a huge ridge. South is really far away from vernon, so the snowmaking is super decentralized. You can't have the same people working the trails you need at least twice as many, which is costly, but more important you have to pressurize way more pipe. The trail that connects granite to south takes a huge amount of snow on a long run and costs so much just to do that. Not saying I think its a good thing, i hate how shitting the snow is. But thats just the facts, they don't attract many more people than the other mountains but it costs a lot more to make snow, and with the marginal temperatures this year a huge amount of snow was diverted to the Grand Prix, enough to cover those bare trails and more than enoughto cover the bare spots. If it weren't for the Grand Prix there probably wouldn't be a half pipe and there would be better snow everywhere else.

 

They have separate pumping stations for each mountain... They do have pretty nice snowmaking as well. Remember that their primary market is freestlyle snowboarding, so a very high amount of snow gets pumped into their parks and that pipe which gives them their primary income. As for crowds... the make a profit every year because of their proximity to NYC... 40 miles from a major metro area = $$$. No other PA area can match that. With a corp. like Intrawest backing you up you know you're making money lol

[method9455]

don't forget weather, mountain creek gets screwed a lot more often tha nthe poconos

[stevePSSC]

yeah MC usually ends up on the low end of every big storm around here.. sometimes the do get a good snowfall but not to often