Alpine Mountain, PA 2/12/11

Teaching your kid to ski definitely makes you diversify your portfolio.

Other than an occasional visit to Camelback for night skiing on my way home from Central New York, I never thought much about skiing in the Poconos. I knew that there were a couple other popular family ski areas: Jack Frost/Big Boulder and Shawnee. The only reason I knew about Alpine Mountain was because it was on the way to my brother’s house in Promised Land State Park:



Every time I drove by on Route 447 and saw those peeling 60s-era billboards, I figured that the ski area had closed years ago:





But since my five-year-old doesn’t need 2,000+ vertical feet at this point in his ski career, I went online and found out that Alpine was still in operation. So last weekend, we went through the woods and over the river to scenic Analomink, PA:





I was shocked to find the parking lot nearly full. There were easily a couple hundred cars there, all families with kids, but no lines at the lifts. Alpine is supposed to only have about 500 verts (that’s being very charitable, in my opinion), but it was a great place to bring the boy, and I dug the NELSAP-y old-school vibe:





Claude had a great time hauling down the gently-pitched trails:



And hanging out with Daddy:

Ha! Teaching my kid to ski has UNdiversified my portfolio, if that was possible.

I've only skied Camelback, once in college, and Blue a few times as it's the closest hill to HR South. I'd never heard of Alpine.

Is the boy rippin' the blue trails yet? Word on the street is he's a natural.

Love the road art.

Harvey44 wrote

Ha! Teaching my kid to ski has UNdiversified my portfolio, if that was possible.

I'd highly recommend you take this opportunity, while your daughter's young, to go check out some beginner ski areas. It's a fun way to see "new" places -- especially those closer to home. If it had been 30-40 years ago, she might have spent time at Harvey Mountain!

It's amazing how, when with a small fry who's learning, you look at smaller hills with different eyes -- instead of saying, "it's not steep enough, long enough, deep enough," you make different terrain choices. Claude and I spent the entire afternoon going down easy blue trails, but on one run we found ourselves screaming down a short, but steep blackish pitch and ended up tumbling into the woods. He laughed; I was less amused sliding face-first into a maple tree.

We're continuing to put Claude in lessons (he's booked at Camelback on Saturday), but my procedure is to do 50% lessons, 50% free skiing with me and/or the wife. At this point, it's back-breaking at times, but I'm finding it to be a great bonding experience and I honestly think that I'm teaching him other things than what he's learning from instructors (i.e. going really fast, keeping the skis parallel instead always going to a wedge).

In other news, as you can see in the following pic and others in the original post, the Poconos also got that same rogue lake effect storm cell that hit the Catskills and ADKs. Although skies were clear the entire day, it dumped for an hour in the mid-afternoon (we even had 15 minutes of a sunny snowstorm), then cleared again.

Jamesdeluxe wrote

It's amazing how, when with a small fry who's learning, you look at smaller hills with different eyes -- instead of saying, "it's not steep enough, long enough, deep enough," you make different terrain choices. Claude and I spent the entire afternoon going down easy blue trails, but on one run we found ourselves screaming down a short, but steep blackish pitch and ended up tumbling into the woods. He laughed; I was less amused sliding face-first into a maple tree.

Nice.

At Gore the first chair lift a beginner rides, when they've graduated beyond the two Poma, is the Sunway Chair. The mid station actually serves "steeper terrain" than the ride all the way up. Jamboree is one of the trails from the mid, and until I was stealth lurking on Jambo during one of Neve's lesson's I didn't realize that the upper half is actually 2x as steep as the lower half of the trail.

When I picked her up at the end of the lesson:

"Neve! You SMOKED the Jambo HEADWALL."

After I explained to her what a headwall was, she invented a song she still sings:

"Steeper is faster, faster is better."

Next time we are up, we're taking our first ride as a family off the Gondola.

I'm diggin it.

If you can tear yourself away from UncasJamboreeLiesRumorChatiemacSagamoreTahawas for once (very doubtful ), maybe the four of us can go skiing in the Poconos one of these weekends.

ouch!!

I liked your TR on alpine. We had a season pass there in 1979 when it was Timber Hill. Our oldest son was also 5 at the time. It brought back some good memories. Thanks, Duck T R

Sad but not surprised to see this news:
http://www.firsttracksonline.com/2017/01/20/closed-pennsylvania-ski-area-up-for-sale

Very difficult for a retro ski area like that to compete against the likes of nearby Camelback and Shawnee.

Good stuff and gooderer Dad passing that torch!

I too love the old school road side signs. Thanks man.

Drove by this morning, saw that it wasn't open, and found this article from last May -- it's done as a feeder hill. My son was kinda bummed; he had a handful of good days there.

Wow. I have not seen this place in many years. Hard to think its still operating though awesome you went there and got your son interested in this addictive sport.. I don't any other sport that is as addictive as skiing.

We skied there when I was a kid - crazy, those signs must be 40 years old!

Very cool report and yes, this is VERY NELSAP...

Jack Frost/Big Boulder - used to be called Masthope when I was a kid. The first place I ever skied at the age of 6 with my dad, who at the time had only been skiing a few years.  Who knew what my dad did would create this addiction..

Thanks for sharing this cool report.

Hey Dads, just checking to see how the kids are doing, must be near teens now.( Neve and Claude)

Ciscokid wrote

Hey Dads, just checking to see how the kids are doing, must be near teens now.(Neve and Claude)

Very cool that you dug out this eight-year-old report and asked about our kids, CK. I still remember our excellent hike at Bearpen.

My son Claude will be 14 in April; he's now 5'9" on his way, I'm reasonably sure, to 6'2" or more. He skis about 8-ish days per season, usually at Poconos joints because they're an hour away. As a special-needs kid, we're still struggling to keep him focused for more than 2.5 hours of skiing per day. That's why we don't travel further afield to bigger ski areas (Catskills, ADKs, VT) with longer drive times.

He can ski virtually any blue or double-blue pitch easily; however, getting him out of a power wedge to scrub speed instead of parallel is likewise challenging because he doesn't learn by verbal instructions/demonstrations ("do it like this!"), it has to be kinesthetic/visual (he has to "feel it") and finding instructors who can facilitate that is tough. Our best experiences have been at Windham; they have a fantastic adaptive program. Unfortunately, it's almost 2.5 hours away so not a quick out-and-back.

Apologies for a much longer answer than you were probably expecting! Oh well, maybe other ski parents with our situation can understand.

We were planning to spend next weekend at Montage Mountain -- had a great visit there two years ago -- however, tonight's gully washer may put a big hurt on their trail count.

BTW, as a Snowjournaler, you're probably aware that Alpine has been closed for several years and I don't see it coming back as a lift-served ski area. Camelback and Shawnee pretty much have cornered the market in that region.

Thanks for the update James, say hi to Russ if you ever see/ hear from him.
The Lanes didn't respond to an email wishing them happy holidays so I hope their ok.
Hey changed it up by tubing with the grandsons today. Glad to hear Claude is well, waiting to hear about Neve.
Thanks again for the Bearpen hike, watched a redo of Prattsville Irene on WChannel.
All well in the flatland after 8 ski days in NH in Jan.
Ski on