rummy

Yep there's a good 2"-3" base.....they had a bunch of rain overnight Sun into Mon and washed about another couple of inches away.

Couldn't get any nicer snow for opening day. Packed Powder well groomed, had to look very hard to fine some icy snow. No Death Cookies only a few chicklets. Two slopes open from the top-Susquehanna to East slope and Tioga to West slope. Six new fan guns blowing until around 1:30 had the bunny slope closed all day. Maybe 75 people there all day, with many regulars and a smattering of boarders all having a good time. Temps warmed up to mid 30's by the afternoon and the snow began to turn to buttery soft perfection. Looks like they'll have upper Tunkhannock open for the weekend, maybe a glade(?) area between E and W slopes, or maybe it will be a smaller terrain park-don't know for sure-but there were a few new STOP READ THIS SIGN signs there. The bar was serving, cafeteria open, restaurant closed. AHH it felt great to be back.. Rummy

Another problem with expanding on that side of the Mtn is the return to the base lodge would be nothing but a very flat and long connector. But, we're dreaming right, it would be a different story if they added another lift from that side to the top....

Both the Stonebridge Inn and Restaurant, and the Endless Mtn resort are about two miles from the Mtn by road. Couple of good fairly cheap places that rent rooms for the night are Chet's Place and the Candlelight Inn on Lake Lowe. Chet's Place is about two miles away and The Candlelight about three. Chet's is the locals hangout with bands most weekends, a pool table, decent bar food, and cheap beer. Candlelight has the best food in the area at reasonable prices, a pool table, and cheap beer--no bands. Both places rent rooms to snowmobilers and can fill up quickly during sledding season. If you have an idea of when you'd like to go, I suggest you call either place now as the number of rooms in both places are very limited.

I think the reason they don't push it is because they get special electric rates from PPL starting Dec 1st. It costs big bucks to run the compressors. Also, anybody look at the long-range weather forecast for Thanksgiving???---heavy duty rain is showing up on the models now. Sorry to say.

True story-- Big Al's father died while at SLC one year. I volunteered to skip skiing that day to take him to the airport for a flight home. I took the rest of the crew up to Solitude that morning, and agreed to pick them up after my trip to the airport. It was snowing all day and the road up the canyon was being plowed regularly. On my trip up the canyon to pick them up around 3:30 there was about 8" on the road and snow was still coming down hard. Three times I had to avoid head-on collisions by out of control idiots, twice by getting into the passing lane and once by hanging in the gutter. I just kept my foot on the gas, if I would have hit the brakes I'm sure I would have crashed. When I got to the Solitude parking lot, I was shaking--I also had to check my skivvies for brown spots. The rest of the crew were all smiles however, because of the 18" of powder they skiied in all day. On the trip back down the canyon I didn't leave the parking lot until I could follow a plow/sand truck the entire way. rummy

Three seasons ago I booked accomodations through Wasatch Front Ski Accomodations. wsfa.com They had condos located at the base of Big Cottonwood Canyon and the Little Cottonwood Canyon. Very reasonable and nice people to deal with. There was a ski shop that sold discount tickets within a couple of blocks. We rented a car (AWD Subby) and the drive up either canyon from the condo took maybe 15-20 mins. (unless you got behind a bus). If you have a group of people the condos are great to stay in. I've also found that Vacation Rentals By Owners vrbo.com is a great source for condo rentals and are cheaper than going through a realtor. Hope this helps. Night Life in Utah?? Pretty scarce and the beer is/was 3.2%.

In years' past, they used to start a PA championship (?) downhill race from the top of the hill above the ski patrol shack at the top. And, I think the 1000' is calculated to the parking lot lift and not the base area.

WOW check out Elks' picture of the day. I don't know when the picture was taken -- but it's still snowing in the picture. www.elkskier.com

Elk's season pass letter, in today's mail, announced 66 new fixed pole snow guns and 10 new fans. Regrading of Lenape (widening) and slope work on Tioga Spur. A new enclosed buggy for the snow crew. And, of course, more pine tree planting. They also said they plan to start making snow late Nov and hope to open early Dec.

well let's see-- $650 divided by their 100 day guarantee, = $6.50/day. and they usually get in about 115 days per season. not bad, I'd say for PA

Hey gang, stopped at elk's office this week to inquire about season pass price----$650., adult, purchased before mid Oct. Last year the same pass was $625. with the early buy in.

Last weekend, I was told by several of the employees, (manager types) that Elk is going to "try" to stay open until Sat March 29th with the employees and guests only party on Sun. I'll be up this weekend and post a further update.

Hey SK, I just returned from a week at WB at 1:30 this A.M.. Lot's of the comments about WB are right on the $$. And $$ is needed!! The exchange rate was $.94 American to the Canadian dollar plus there is an extra 14.5% tax on just about everything--a case of beer is about $50.00, bowl of chili $7.95 plus that dreaded tax. Beer specials at the Longhorn Saloon at Whistler's base was $4.50 a mug plus that dreaded tax. Lift tickets ran $80.00 plus that dreaded tax. Get it? there is a dreaded tax on everything. We flew out of Harrisburg and into Seattle, round trip $326.pp booked back in Sept. We also found a great ski in/out condo above the Creekside Gondola through VRBO.com (vacation rentals by owners) for $1575.00 for the week($315.pp), no dreaded tax. Nothing real fancy about the condo, but it had three bedrooms and two baths and handled our five-some of guys without any problem. This, we also booked early in Sept. 2007. Planning early can save a bunch of money. Of course we had to rent a big Ford Expedition to get to and from Seattle and to easily access the grocery store. liguor store. shopping and restaurants/bars of the Whistler Village area. With gas at $1.15 per liter, the total rental and gas ran about $800. If you fly into Vancouver the airfare will be more expensive, but you can easily find a method of transportation ranging from private limo to bus, from the Vancouver airport to Whistler and back. Once at Whistler, if you stay anywhere in the Village your own car is not necessary. The shuttle busses are quick and convenient and taxis are fairly cheap and driven mostly by local ski bums who can tell you where the best clubs and restaurants are. The Olympics are going to be at WB in 2010 and anything with an Olympics logo on it was an immediate $20-$40 more than a comparable item. But enough about the costs, just thought I'd clue you in on current costs. BTW we ran into a lot of European and English skiiers and they thought WB was a real bargain and better than any skiing they have in Europe right now (global warming shrinking the skiing onto the tops of the mtns causing lot's of crowded slopes). And now the skiing part. I've been to WB three times in the last 25yrs. First time we couldn't ski to the bottom of the mtn and had to download the bottom third. The skiing on top was excellent and we didn't lose a day of skiing due to weather. The second trip was fabulous, fresh tracks two mornings in about 8" of powder that fell overnight and absolutely the most perfect of ski weeks (there's lots more I could write about this week). This years' trip we again hit a good week. Top to bottom skiing with three beautiful bluebird days, one day of all day snow where at times visibility was tough but the powder kept on falling. One day of good partly sunny skiing, but the slopes were fairly crowded (Sun,). Friday was supposed to be rainy, but turned out to be rain free, although low clouds and fog were swirling around all day. It was one of those days, that if you waited 10 mins you had altogether different conditions. We found that the middle of the mtn had the best skiing and no crowds. WB has any type of skiing you could enjoy, from gradual greens to off the peak, in your face, 60' cliff jumps and even heli-skiing. The area is HUGE you could ski there for two seasons and still find terrain you haven't skiied. Most of the areas within the area have green, blue, and black trails from the top of the lifts. That said, some of the greens are steeper than many blacks in PA. From experience at 30+ mtns out west and Canada you can get altitude sickness and can find difficulty with being out of breath. We've learned to take it easy the first day and acclimate. One of the things we look for now that we are Old Farts, is a lower altitude. There's a big difference skiing at 1100' or at 7600' not to mention sleeping at 9000' vs 2600'. We've never had altitude sickness at WB but we have had it at Vail and it does slow you down. I honestly think, like others, that your First Trip Out West should be somewhere other than WB. I think you could get a better experience at a smaller, less challenging mtn. Go there for your Big 35, get a little more experience under your boots and you'll enjoy it more. Hope this helps and have fun planning! Rummy

The bar on the right is called "the lift inn". It's been years since I was in the place, at that time the beer was cold, the pizza decent, and the shuffleboard table fun, but the roof was leaking. We always comment on the way into Elk, that they could have a good business if they would only fix up the joint. The other development just off the exit is going to be a convenience store/gas station. The owners of the property are locals and will be catering to the skiers, homemade soups, sandwiches, hoagies, etc.---and a Beer distributorship!! This project has been in the works for about 2 yrs and was supposed to be opened last fall in time for this years ski season. Permitting and road engineering problems created the delay. The owners tell me they hope to be open in May, but are not holding their breath.

Better get your eyes checked or give up those funny mushrooms--I guarantee you there aren't any new trails or a new quad.

chet's place is the locals hangout. Fri night is steak night. glad you had a great time. also, this wknd was the busiest of the season.

the 100 day guarantee is figured like this: 1% credit / day less than 100. i.e. 95days of skiing 5% credit--90days of skiing 10% credit only happened once that I heard of in the last 25 years and I think the credit was like 3% Rummy Edit: well, we all said basically the same thing

How would you Know? How many times have you skied Elk this year? The skiing has been very good throughout most of the year. There have been some weather related bad days at Elk and at Sno too I guess.

Elk got about 6" (my cabin's 1 mile away as the crow flies and faces the terrain park and DE slope). I was up at 6:00 AM and there was a little ice crust on top of the fresh. By the time the lifts opened at 8:30 it was raining moderately and by 9:30 it was raining heavily. We headed home at 11:45 and saw one lone skiier on Susquehanna. Didn't bother taking a closer look as the sattelite only showed a continuing downpour. The 6" snowfall had turned into about 3" of slush by the tome we left. It could be pretty decent by Fri--no guarantees. Rummy

Thanks for the tip on the MB. I saw the discounts available to "locals", now you've got me thinking about contacting a previous host. I can always fall back to online booking. Thanks again!

This is our third trip to Whistler, it's our favorite mtn out West. Sun valley is next, and then A-basin. Big Al is the photographer, I'll try to get him to post a few pics.

no can do, trip's booked for March 1-8. You have to be taking a chance on snow conditions in May. Lot's of downloading I bet.

Re: Lightning and ski lifts--I've had two experiences. The first was at Park City, snowing so hard you couldn't see the chair in front of you but, we could see the snow light up with the flash followed by a tremendous crack of thunder and an immediate halt of the lift. Oh boy, now what do we do? As we're hanging there we're debating whether or not, if lightning strikes the cable, and we're between the strike and the charge going to ground, do we survive? Luckily after several minutes the lift started again and we headed into a lodge at the top to let the storm blow through. About a half hour later it's still snowing like crazy and the ski patrol comes in and says they're closing the mtn and will lead groups of six to the bottom. This was around noon and even though it turned into a bluebird afternoon the mtn never re-opened and no discounts were offered that we knew of. The second time was several years later at Snowbird. Our first trip there, first run of the day, on the first tram of the day. Again snowing and blowing to beat the band, 125 people crammed in the tram nose to nose hooting and hollering about the upcoming day. Suddenly the tram comes to a complete stop about halfway to the top and you could now hear a pin drop inside the tram. Ring, ring, the operator gets a call from down below, says a word or two into the phone, hangs up and says "I guess you're wondering what's going on."(understatement of the day) he went on to explain the sensors picked up static electricity in the air and the tram had to be put on manual overide. At a super slow speed, we proceeded to the top with the tram swinging to and fro from the fierce wind gusts. We, being rookies, thought well OK we'll head into the lodge at the top and wait out the storm. Turns out there is no lodge and we fought our way through the freezing rain, sleet, snow and 50 mph winds for about an hour until we all got to the bottom to dry out. The mtn didn't close, but they did close the tram until later on in the afternoon after the winds died down. Moral of the stories-- it's no fun being on a lift in a thunderstorm, but it's an experience that makes a great story!!

Hey gang, I'm headed to Whistler the first week in March with four guys on our 25th annual Stag Trip. We have the accomodations at $315 for the week and the airfare at $326 from Harrisburg. The lift tickets are around $80 / day, so 6 days of skiing are costing more than the airfare and the accomodations. If we book on line we can save about $8. / day. Anybody know if there are better deals available on lift tickets? Or, can somebody point me to a forum on Whistler/BC? Thanks!