Elk Mountain (Ski Resort)

For a real skier's mountain in eastern PA, drive past the rest in the Poconos and go to the best!  Elk Mountain boasts a great variety in trails and grooms them very well. 
 

Their snowmaking is adequate, lift lines are very small, and the general public knows proper skier's etiquette.  This is much more of an intermediate/advanced mountain for the Eastern PA region.  There have been much planting of Norway Spruces, White Pines, and Eastern Hemlock trees throughout the resort to give it more of an alpine feel plus it also creates a much better wind break to retain the snow on the trails and reduce its movement to the woods.

The lodge is has a nice aesthetic feel and has quite a bit of room.  The bar/restaurant has a great feel with plenty of windows to view the mountain.  Plus it has Long Trail on tap to give it a bit of a feel of Vermont!  The food in the cafeteria and the restaurant is very reasonably priced for a ski resort and is of good quality. 
 

My only gripe is that there are a a lack of hotels in close proximity of the resort, stayed in Scranton, and the unlighted trails are closed too early in the month of March when there is still an abundance of sunlight.

Overall, I throughly enjoyed my 2 day trip with friends to Elk Mountain and would happily return! 

The Good: Elk Mountain consistantly provides the best skiing conditions and mountain experience in PA.  I've skiied Elk many times over the years and they always seem to have the best snow, the least crowds, and the best skiers anywhere else in PA.  There are no true steep runs and the mountain skis only 926 vert feet (dispite the 1000 ft they claim); however, Elk Mountain more than makes up for that in long runs that wind thru the woods. The slower lift system does help to keep the slopes less crowded.

The Bad: The base lodge is no-frills and it is very small (gets extremely crowded very quickly), there is no close lodging, and it's in the middle of nowhere.  Also, the current trend in PA seems to be glade skiing (see Blue Mountain, Jack Frost, Sno Mountain, and Camelback). Apparently Elk is very much against opening up the trees.  Elk is also the most expensive mountain in Eastern PA.  While that wouldn't be so bad, but it seems that the management doesn't use any of that money to upgrade the lift system or expand the base lodge. 

All in all, Elk Mountain is still my favorite place to ski in PA because it consistently skis the best. 

I have skied Elk about 15 times over the past two years and it has become my home mountain. It is not the most convenient for me. I live in Northern NJ so Hunter, Windham, Belleayre, Mtn.Creek, Camelback and Blue are all closer. But the conditions at this place are really significantly better than any place I have skied at (and that includes Okemo who do an excellent job also). Let me elaborate. First they are really adept at snowmaking. They have very good equiptment and make a lot of snow with low moisture that holds up quite nicely throughout the season. And as I have stated they are excellent groomers. Elk has been sited in Ski Magazine as being one of the top groomed mountains in the East. They deserve it. This is where they really shine. The grooming is perfect. They get the entire slope in pristine condition. You can see the courdory lines going under the trees, they miss nothing. This combination of reliable meticulous grooming and dry packed powder really makes a huge difference in your skiing performance and even though I have ben skiing almost 40 years I found that I had so much confidence in the terrain that I improved significantly when I ski here. I am not fearful of increasing my speed and really opening up which I would never try in lesser conditions. The slopes (as the other reviewers have said) are varied and interesting. No this is not a 2000 foot vertical mountain, but this place has some very entertaining terrain for every level of skiier. This is predominantly a skiiers mountain. Oh sure there are boarders, but they are definitely in the minority, The place gets super packed on the weekend, so I only go mid-week, where it is generally very mellow. I never wait more than 30 seconds for a lift, NEVER!!! The place is also aesthetically pleasing. Elk has planted hundreds of giant spruces all over the mountain. Besides being beautiful, they keep the wind manageable on the hills. The lifts are definitely slow as everyone complains. Being an older skiier with some leg issues, this is actually a good thing for me. Time to recover before my next run. Also it keeps the traffic on the slopes to a manageble number (but as I said being a mid-week skier it really does not matter much to me). The place could definitely use some infra-structure upgrades. The lodge is serviceable, but really a bit dated. There are adequate lockers but they don't clean them enough and the bathrooms are all downstairs and there is no changing room inside. The inside maintenance I would rate only as fair. Most of the staff is very nice but some of the lift attendants are lazy and just sit in their booths and read instead of being more attentive to the unloading areas on top. Elk should make some changes in these regards. The place is not much of a bargain either. I wish they had a season pass for mid-week, but they don't. College students get a $20.00 ticket on Wednesdays and seniors over 65 get the same on Tuesdays. I don't fall into those groups so there is not much of a bargain for me. Also the place is less convenient than other mountains, but I think it is worth it. But as I said the conditions most days are just amazingly consistently great. As long as they keep this up I will be back.  

I really enjoyed my skiing at Elk Mountain. The comparisons to skiing up in New England are fitting (minus the extreme cold, to a degree--no pun intended). While it is a bit smaller with only around 1000 foot of vertical drop, it is still a nice mountain to ski. My biggest complaint with Elk was the speed of the lifts. That makes it a pretty good mountain in my book if that was my biggest complaint. 

I skied there in the midst of a freeze/thaw cycle, but Elk had done a good job with grooming away a lot of the ice. I really enjoyed the moguls at Elk mountain. They have a long, wide mogul trail under the lift on the right hand side if you are looking at the trail map. The day I was there was a bit crowded and they actually had to rope off a small section of the trail because the chair lift was only about 6-8 ft. off the ground and skiers were jumping off moguls and hitting the chairs with their poles. One gentleman lost control and about ended up in a chair.

Elk is also laid out nice if you would like to pick up some speed. They have some long black diamond trails that have no intersecting trails and no blind rollers to deal with. I think the fastest I have ever been traveling on skis is at Elk. They also have several other mogul trails stashed around the mountain.

I've never been much of a park skier, but I enjoyed the park at Elk. The layout was nice and did not leave many blind spots that could cause trouble. It was also is convenient to run through and scout out with a rope tow being right there in the terrain park. 

Another facet I enjoyed was how well marked the area was. There was enough trail signs that you wouldn't get lost unlike many areas in the Poconos. The only other con I could think of didn't really phase me, but might others. It is somewhat out of the way and the nearest significant night life would be about 45 minutes away in Scranton.