Camelback, PA 01/24/15

With my wife's season-ending foot surgery coming up on Monday, we headed up to the Poconos for a final 2014-15 family trip. Whereas Camelback's proximity to us (a little over an hour) and convenient location right alongside I-80 always make it a no-brainer for a quick day trip, we decided to make this an overnight visit and it turned out to be a great call.

Staying at the Camelback Chateau, just below the base area, allowed us to completely sidestep morning road delays due to the overnight snow. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast buffet and easily made it to the ski school for my son's 9 am lesson. Do you remember how exciting it was to go to a hotel as a kid?



The eight inches of Pocono Powder really sweetened up conditions and the wife and I spent all morning tracking it up on the edges of the trails and especially on our favorites, the overlooked and consistently pitched blue runs Rhododendron Glen and Pocono Raceway:





The two high-speed quads had five- to eight-minute waits; however, the singles lines on those lifts were virtually ski-on, so we quickly managed to rack up a fair amount of vertical. By noon, all three of us were having fun doing laps together and it was clear that our son Claude had had a breakthrough during his morning lesson, particularly in the way he was using his poles to keep himself out of the backseat (thanks to Kathy for the great instruction!):





By 1 pm, with the new snow thickening a bit and our legs getting tired, we finally gave in to Claude's demands and skied down to the Mountain Coaster:



If you haven't tried it, you're missing out: a real hoot and you can get a decent bit of speed on the banked turns:



From the Sun Bowl bunny hill, you can see how Camelback is taking Jay Peak's recent infrastructure upgrades to the next level and cementing its position as the region's only full-service/four-season resort with a $163 million hotel (450+ suites) featuring the largest ski-in/ski-out indoor waterpark (Aquatopia) in the U.S. To say that it's going to be popular is an understatement:



Last but not least in the family-fun department was our dinner at the beautiful Japanese restaurant Desaki, about ten minutes away on Route 611. The hibachi chefs have the whole performance-art aspect of their craft down to a science and leave guests screaming and laughing:



With the handy blue "training wheels" attachment, Claude became pretty adept at using chopsticks:



The food was as tasty as it looks and portions were generous to say the least -- we ended up with enough leftovers for an additional meal at home:



A great visit and makes me wonder why we don't get out of the day-trip mindset more often? Camelback and the region really lend themselves well to a fun winter getaway (skiing + lots of additional activities) with a minimum of driving for those of us at the southern edge of ski country.

Looks like a great quick get away!!

Camelback is in the perfect geographic location. About 1.5 hrs from NYC and the same for Phily. They should do very well with their expansion.

I hope you manage to sneak in another day or two, but that looks great!

Terrific tr James.  I'm curious, how can a waterpark be considered ski-in / ski-out?  Do they expect visitors to ski down, take a dip and then head back out for a few more runs?

Adk Jeff wrote

I'm curious, how can a waterpark be considered ski-in / ski-out?  Do they expect visitors to ski down, take a dip and then head back out for a few more runs?

Similar to Jay Peak, the lodge and waterpark are right next to one of the high-speed lifts, so I assume that most people would take advantage of the ski-in rather than the ski-out part of the equation.

I usually go there at night to ski the bumps above the Sullivan Express. Short but fun and you can get lots of laps with that high-speed quad. Never stayed overnight because I usually go myself after work, but will def bring the family when the waterpark is open.