abe

If the WNEP ski card becomes a thing again this year that could be an assortment of mountains for around here that could be more easily visited than the current Indy Pass lineup

Indy adds Powder Mountain Utah, West Mountain NY, and Mt. Ashland Oregon. 40% price increase to $279. Blackouts added on Cannon and Saddleback weekends in January and March, Magic on MLK and Presidents Sat/Sun (but not Mon), and Waterville Christmas/New Years/MLK/Presidents. More mountains could be added before the season starts. Not quite as exciting for us here in PA as I had hoped.

Haha I have gotten used to watching college online lectures at 1.25-2x speed depending on how fast the people talk and how confusing the subject is. The first few seconds few sound like gibberish still until I get adjusted. Some of these bonehead professors make videos longer than their regular lecture time would be

https://www.stormskiing.com/p/podcast-40-montage-mountain-managing This is a month old now but I just listened to it (on 2x speed). I didn't see it mentioned anywhere here - an interview with Montage's owner Charles Jefferson. There is some pretty interesting stuff discussed: -The guy did not ski until after he bought Montage -Providing good customer and passholder experience, affordable season passes and midweek tickets, and making snow in March -Long Haul is being rehabilitated like the others lifts there but not replaced due to the unique Montage crowd flow -Hotel plans and year round business -Long term possibilities of cutting a blue trail to the bottom and possibilities to expand -Montage asked Indy Pass about what joining would look like last year but apparently Indy said something about only having one mountain per region - which is weird because if you look at the Indy map there is a big hole in PA other than Shawnee - especially how close many are in NH, and New England in general - and Shawnee is not really an expert's ski hill - and Philly area/East PA is probably the worst-served market on the East coast by Indy pass. Which does raise some though about the April 27 Indy Pass announcement, with the price increase and "more value" and "exciting additions" - Will we see Montage or any other PA areas added? Overall I was also struck just how different the philosophy this guy has of running Montage seems to be different from Vail, and how open he was talking about business details and stuff to the podcast.

Got the shot today but vaccine passport talk needs to be shut down. That is none of the government's business. I can see it happening it Europe but I don't think it will be a legit thing here. Things are definitely looking like they will be back to normal by summer imo

Indy pass pricing and additions drop April 27. They are hinting towards adding more mountains "in all regions" and slight price increase, but will "pack more value than expected" I hope the day trip offerings for PA increase. Indy would be a great alternative to Epic if that is the case. Ikon potentially coming to Camelback makes things even more interesting.

dang. webcam looks like there is a good bit of snow still. Currently snow flurries down south in Lancaster here.

I almost didnt go because I couldn't get a ticket and nobody answered the phone. A technically literate middle schooler could probably design a better website than most of these ski areas. Elk has the best website design imo. Nice and simple.

It straight up said there was an error last week and to try again later for like a solid hour, I couldn't buy my night nicket. It would clear the guest name on the ticket every time I entered myself. Tried it in 3 different browsers.

Thought I was done for the year at Blue on Friday but I might go to Camelback Friday evening due to a light work load this weekend. Waiting to see what the snow report looks like on Friday. I was looking into the bridge tolls you mentioned - it looks like all of those including white haven would be incredibly easy for locals to avoid - just get off, cross the river on the parallel local road, and get back on - not more than a couple minutes lost. I actually think this is a decent idea, make the interstate travelers and truckers pay for the interstate bridge replacements rather than using our PA tax $ which otherwise could be used on local projects. People have been saying I-80 needs tolls for years, since more and more truckers and out-of-staters take it instead of the Turnpike and as a result Turnpike tolls have increased disproportionately to pay for untolled I-80, which is not in great shape - now it may be getting 4 in addition to the Delaware River toll.

two of my friends at the University of Delaware drove all the way to LV just to get White Castle

This is going to be me, I hate to say, Roundtop tickets were insane this year and I didn't go there once. I drove the extra hour to the poconos every time. Probably going to give in to Vail and buy the dang pass but I am seriously concerned about what crowds at Roundtop/Liberty/Whitetail will look like next year - Indy+Bear Creek $25 night tickets is the other option. Highest price I paid for a lift ticket this year was $59 for Plattekill.

After 3pm tickets are now $45 which is more reasonable, especially considering it is light until like 7:30 now. And you can probably avoid parking fee. Blue was charging $49 for only 4 hour after 3pm tickets Roundtop was charging $60 for night tickets this year which is insanity. Vail sucks

I didn't get there this year because every time we thought about going they were sold out! They must have had a pretty good year

I'm not convinced they couldn't make it to Sunday if they really had wanted to. The only trail which had truly massive bare spots was Sidewinder. Yes it is melting fast and 80 degrees, but many trails still seemed to have pretty good coverage. Understandable that they would not want to be open in the pouring rain with spotty coverage and few customers on Sunday though. Anyway, I am not a Blue regular, but that's the emptiest I have ever seen it. Overall icier than I would have hoped given 80 degree temperatures but I guess the rain did a number on the corn quality. Still a lot of good snow though, Widowmaker and tops of razors and paradise had the best conditions. Tried to do some moguls which was a terrible idea, rocks, dirt, bulletproof ice, snow melting out underneath the bumps and collapsing in. Impressive lake at the bottom of 6er lift.

Almost surely getting Epic next year, after some reflection, 2hr drive to poconos every single time not worth it when I can get a pass for Roundtop on epic 1hr away which also includes JF/BB Liberty/Whitetail and Hunter all as possible day trips. The question is now do I also get Indy. Probably will still hold on buying epic until Indy pass drops just in case they somehow add more PA mountains.

I was there - you might not have seen me tele turning on the runouts though. I am a n00b at that this year, this will be 4th time on tele skis. 2/5 platty, 3/5 shawnee, 3/12 spring, Blue seems so much bigger coming from Spring Mountain last time and actually having to take my time on tele skis rather than rip right down lol. The 1082' and express lift has got my legs on fire right now, I was cheating and parallel turning a good bit.

That is a fantastic picture

change of plans, I'm getting a late start and won't be skiing much more than 4 hours anyway so getting 4hr night pass at blue instead of camelback I'll be the dumbass telemarking in jeans if anyone is there and wants to try and spot me Pretty windy here in Lancaster, does Blue ever shut down anything for wind holds?

I am kind of in the same boat. Don't want to give money to Vail but with the prices and the fact that Roundtop is on epic makes it difficult. I am really trying to justify Indy for myself. Blue Knob on Indy is 1072 vert and considered best terrain in PA, if they have snow Shawnee would be interesting for the 2/3 times from Indy but I don't think I would want to ski there enough in a year to get a full season pass. I would surely use both day tickets there and then the 3rd day discount on a night ticket or something. Greek Peak has day trip potential but is pushing a long drive. Catamount pushing it even more. Lots of cool places in NE on there though.

Wow, was that one of the planes at the Reading air show? Looking forward to that event this year, hopefully it does not get cancelled again.

Yeah stats probability not the best way to consider the risk of riding camelback lifts currently but a good general idea of how risky it is to ride a random chairlift. I would be very interested in seeing the results of the investigation and am interested to see what they do with sullivan lift, if doppelmayer says any thing about it, or if Camelback is determined to be at fault for bad maintenance or the bouncing issue. But it does seem like this could very well be a fluke accident - lots of chairs bounce around quite a bit when they are stopped/started suddenly. Sullivan lift definitely very sketch since if it did it once it could do it again. It is just sitting there menacingly on the webcam. Stevenson quad also kind of sketch since it is apparently very similar, definitely will be thinking about this if I am riding it tomorrow, but from what people are saying stevenson never really bounced like people said Sullivan and been doing. At any rate, the risk driving in the car or of crashing/being hit by someone skiing is surely far more dangerous than riding the lifts at Camelback even now (really knocking on wood here as I write this).

Sweaty engineering time Ok so Camelback has been open since 1963 and, although a chair apparently fell off the bullwheel once, only 3 people have fallen off of a chair. Camelback does not share skier visit #s though so you can't get a percent there If we consider only Sullivan, it has been running since 1995 year round with 66 chairs and a 3.1min bottom to top time according to liftblog. Since 1995 66 chairs/6min round trip * more or less 5 full months worth of operating after considering both winter and occasional summer operation * 30 days/month * 12 hours/day * 60min/hour is 1,188,000 trips and only 1 chair has fallen off. This gives literally somewhere on the order of 1 in a million chance even on Sullivan. If there are about 2,500 ski lifts in the US, and at least as many no longer exist, and less than a dozen chairs or so have ever fallen off of a list in the US with people on them (mostly Yan detachables), this gives odds on the order of 1 in 500 million that a chair will fall off in any given trip or about 0.000000001% chance

Maybe I should bubble wrap myself before getting on the lift

Thinking I might go to Camelback tomorrow night given better base condition and, surprisingly, better night rate than Blue I will try my hardest to avoid the parking scam and to not let my chair fall off the cable