It’s coming up on 8 years in Philadelphia (the suburb of Conshohocken actually) and some local ski resorts including Blue Mountain and Jack Frost have been explored and skied. 7 Springs Mountain Resort in Champion, PA was where I great up skiing and teaching skiing and snowboarding. This year wil be a new experience up at Elk Mountain ski resort in Union Dale, Pennsylvania.
Elk Mountain is supposed to be one of the best ski resorts in Pennsylvania. It’s been around since 1959 and has around 30 slopes and trails that I’ve never skied before. For quite a while I’ve wanted to find a place to crash up in the Poconos to avoid having to drive home every day after skiing. While Elk is a bit farther than the Poconos, it is where the house was that had an opening so I decided it was time to go for it. To go in on the house for the season was equivalent to one months rent which is a bargain to have a 5br place to go to with a bunch of other people.
Along with the place, I decided to get a season pass at Elk Mountain. Compared to the early bird pricing for season ski passes at 7 Springs (typically under $400), Elk was a bit steep at $690 but that is all the more motivation to jump in and go skiing just about every single weekend.
Elk Mountain is more of a skiers mountain or so I would expect since there doesn’t seem to be much there aside from the ski slopes. The closest hotels are several miles away and there are no onsite condos. Bed and Breakfast places are scattered around but there doens’t seem to be anything right at Elk Mountain.
Since there are no accomodations, the place probably isn’t very crowded. They would make a lot more money and probably lower the season pass prices if they built tons of condos up there but it will be nice to ski at a place that isn’t over crowded where people are there mostly just to ski and not “vacation”. The lifts are old and slow from what I can tell but if there are no lift lines, it should all balance out.
Either the weekend of December 14th or December 21st, 2008 should be the innagural weekend up at Elk. Can’t wait to go pick up my season pass, not hav to drive home and spend the night out in the middle of nowhere at what looks to be a nice 5br place with a great bunch of people.
