Rowsdower

You drive up and you see a giant cement box with colored tubes jutting out of it. It kills whatever atmosphere the mountain had. Last time I was there in mid February the space between the bottom of the Glen double and Stevenson Express quad was packed with families walking to and from the mountain coaster. It wasn't safe. It's at the bottom of the run out between three chairlifts and you've got people in sneakers with kids in tow puttering over to the mountain coaster. Went to Barley Creek afterwards around 2:30 and there was an hour wait for a table. I used to tolerate Camelback. It was closest to where I lived in Jersey and it has decent terrain for a PA mountain. After this year I will not be going back. Got a Peak Pass and moving to JFBB. CBK had their chance to thoughtfully integrate the new resort into the mountain and absolutely blew it.

With days closed I have no idea. I heard somebody say that they had to make it until the 20th, but nothing official. I haven't been counting anyway.

I guess they just got their 70 days in?

They renamed the blue between Marje's and Big Pocono, I think. Not sure what it was called before.

Like I said, these are monthly averages from NOAA. I don't know how else to convince you here. These are temperature *averages* so we're dealing with days where it will be five degrees cooler, and days where it won't. 1,000 feet of elevation change can cause a drop in temp of about three degrees, but there's so many other variables that this won't always hold true in our case. I've definitely experienced the same differences on some days. But I also know of looking at temps where base and summit temps are the same at Blue or Camelback, or even the inverse. Once you smooth it all out you get about 3-4 degrees in difference between the Lehigh Valley and the Pokes. Give an extra degree for the summit at those mountain locations and maybe we're pushing 5 degrees on average. Not that it doesn't matter. If a storm comes through and conditions line up to give us a five degree difference then it can mean snow in the hills and rain in the valley. It happens a lot. It'll probably happen tomorrow even. But it doesn't mean it happens all the time.

Even if I take a reporting station on top of the Pocono Plateau, the temp isn't going to vary more than half a degree. I can post links to the data if you want to look for yourself.

On average. I compared Scranton with the Lehigh Valley. These are 30 year temperature averages by month. It's certainly not ten degrees at any rate.

Its about three degrees if you go by the 1980-2010 temp averages from NOAA.

In case anyone is curious, I managed to get the total number of skier visits from whoever mans the BC facebook account. Last year they reported an average of 1415 skier/snowboarder and snowtubing visits per day. The guy quoted in the article said they got about 800-900 visits per day, so he was either misinformed, making numbers up, or not counting snowtubers. Do they really make up almost half their visits with snowtubers? Seems a bit much to me. For comparison Camelback drew ~8000 skier/snowboarder visits on a "busy" day. The "ten degrees colder in the Poconos" thing was apparently made up though.

They opened four trails, not one: besides Black Bear they also opened Kodiak on the main quad as well as Cub Run and Drifter with the beginner triple and rope tow. Doesn't really matter though; its really crowded. They're still blowing snow so hopefully the rest of the mountain is open soon.

Really? They've been blowing on the whole mountain. I'm surprised that they don't have enough coverage anywhere else except on Black Bear.

I don't mind them waiting, it's just I have a window of opportunity and Bear is convenient to me. I could always make the trek to Blue I suppose. Looks like after Tuesday they'll have good conditions to make snow. Finally some consistently cold temperatures will be arriving.

The guns are on again tonight. Any word on possible opening? I'm hoping they'll be open by New Years so I can get a few turns in on my vacation.

Global warming has certainly advanced in the three years since I was last at Bear. Let's see... I don't remember a year where opening was later than the 17th of December. There was one year where they closed for a week, reopened, closed for a week again, then finally opened for good, but I think that was by Christmas or New Years. Sad, and I was planning on maybe getting back on my snowboard for the first time in years, but doesn't look like it's gonna happen in this weather.

I totally mentioned Whiteface. Its fun when its not windy.