CarverJill
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Not sure, I never skied there but in the 80's or 90's took a day trip over when we were in Lake Placid for a week and it was raining.
The high speed lift at Wildcat is quite fun. Assuming of course that it's not too cold and windy. Being able to use a lift ticket at either Wildcat or Attitash on the same day seems like a smart move. Apparently Wildcat is celebrating 60 years with an Anniversary Weekend Jan 25-28, 2018.I seem to be just getting to the 'where have you ....' part of this list. Much fun! I've only skied Alta from that list. Somehow I've missed Wildcat all the times I've been to Jackson/N. Conway.
I second/third/whatever adding Cannon and Powder Mountain. I used to ski Cannon and Sunapee when they were both still run by the state of NH. There could be some cold days with sketchy conditions but never a shortage of adrenaline at Cannon! And when I got to Powder Mountain however many years ago, I was with a collection of brothers from NH. We all agreed it felt like landing in Cannon circa 199?, with knee deep powder instead of ice!
Alta is a good place to start for the Boston Globe list in Post #1. Of course, I'm completely biased because that's the first place I skied out west long ago as a teen when I was in my second season on straight skis. Even though the lifts were a lot slower then (no safety bars), I had a blast. Would you be interested in a self-guided introduction of all the lifts?None, although I'm going to Alta this year.
Oops, turns out that the videos I found are not from Shawnee Mountain in PA, but Shawnee Peak in Bridgton, ME. I'll fix the list when I post it again.Having looked at Montage from the mid-mountain base lodge, I think it should be on the Diva list as well. Also Blue Knob, Laurel Mountain, and Shawnee Peak in PA. Can't decide about Elk. In contrast, from what I know Whitetail and Camelback are not old school. I've skied BK, Elk, Whitetail, and looked at the base of Shawnee. Very curious about Shawnee after viewing a video of drone footage. Shawnee has a great collection of videos on their website.
Shawnee Peak aerial tour
Powder turns at Shawnee in Feb 2016
Having looked at Montage from the mid-mountain base lodge, I think it should be on the Diva list as well. Also Blue Knob, Laurel Mountain, and Shawnee Peak in PA. Can't decide about Elk. In contrast, from what I know Whitetail and Camelback are not old school. I've skied BK, Elk, Whitetail, and looked at the base of Shawnee. Very curious about Shawnee after viewing a video of drone footage. Shawnee has a great collection of videos on their website.
I'm curious what about Montage felt old school to you vs. Elk? Of the two, I feel like Elk has more of an old school vibe than Montage. Are we just talking what the lodges are like? Lifts? Is there something about terrain that is old school in nature?
@tinymoose : your quote got a little scrambled. But I think your point is that Elk is probably old school in the context of this thread.
Perhaps the question for PA is which ski areas are NOT old school. Seven Springs, Whitetail, Camelback are clearly ski resorts with 4-season operations and slope side resort lodging. Liberty, Roundtop are part of Snowtime, while Hidden Valley and Laurel Mountain are part of the Seven Springs ownership. But my impression is that those four little areas are as "old school" as Elk when it comes to the on mountain experience. Elk and Montage are independently owned, which is another possible consideration.
Having summer activities that cost money don't necessarily mean a ski area has the feel of a modern ski resort. Plattekill is certainly more likely to survive as a ski area because of the efforts that have gone into becoming a mountain biking destination. Perhaps one factor is whether or not there is real estate development very close to the slopes, as in ski in/out. But even that's not the whole story. Ascuteny has a Holiday Inn Vacations resort right at the base. But clearly as a ski hill, Ascuteny is old school.I'm only really familiar with the Eastern ski hills, but of those... I think only Elk and JFBB (Jack Frost/Big Boulder owned by Peak) don't have some sort of summer thing going on. Montage has their water park and zip lines plus a concert venue, Blue does zip lining and mountain biking, Bear Creek has their big fancy resort, Camelback has Camelbeach and zip lines.
There are people trying to keep Tupper open, but it's been an uphill battle. The volunteer effort that started in 2009 was not sustainable.Is Tupper still there? DH broke a set of poles there. Old thumb breakers grip one.
Do you happen to know if these places have more or less than 500 skiable acres?What about Monarch in CO? And Ski Cooper?
Sipapu in NM?
Having been to Loon, it's definitely not really "old school" any more.I don't know how many are legitimately "old" but they seem old to me since I was actually young when I skied them.
Wildcat, , Cannon, Attitash, Mt. Cranmore, Loon, in NH; Gore Mtn., Whiteface, Greek Peak, in NY; Eldora, in CO; Alta UT, Gray Rocks (in Quebec - closed). I think I'd have to add Taos, which still feels very old school to me (in every good way possible).