This thread will be where all my rants go, upon Harvey's request.
Just read off the Mountain Creek website "Updated 3:30pm, Bear Peak will be closed for race training from 3pm-8pm". That lift closes at 8, so it's basically closed completely to the night crowd. As a result, there is now only one trail (with a couple offshoots) open on that entire side of the mountain, and it's the terrain park. This is the 3rd time they've allowed this since the weekend, and Monday was the weekend, so they're 0 for 3 on opening that section this week. I did the math and this means that they're renting out about a quarter of their currently open terrain to the race teams and an entire lift. Guess what, ticket prices are still the same.
Up through 06-07, this area was the best part of the mountain. South had a terrain park and the rest was a bunch of long groomers, especially by NJ standards. Bear Peak had one designated race trail, and the rest was open to the public all day every day, no exceptions. The runs there were shorter than South, but slightly steeper as well. In 07-08 this area was turned completely into terrain parks. It worked great for the years it existed this way and Mountain Creek won "best parks in the east" for multiple years in a row. In 13-14, they decided to bring back racing and took the terrain park off Bear Peak. This totally outraged most of their park crowd and sent much of them to Big Boulder, Mount Snow, and other destinations in PA. Lines were very long on South the entire year as it was the only lift that served terrain parks. Meanwhile, their race program did not grow significantly, and Bear was so quiet, that even on weekends, you could ski right onto the lift. The biggest problem was that to get to the non-park terrain on Bear Peak, you had to go through the terrain park on South Peak. In 14-15, the racing program grew a lot and this arrangement made more sense, however, it did result in a few maddening race closures of Bear Peak. I shook this off and figured they'd fix this problem as they year went on and they did. I though that it would be better this year, but is now far worse.
What used to be the best skiing south of the Catskills is now this section is a race arena that oh, by the way has a mediocre terrain park that's actually open to the public, but filled with wannabe x-games athletes. These kids think they can snowboard way better than they actually can and go at completely reckless speeds, frequently taking each other out. The racers are equally bad, acting like snotty, rich brats that think they own the place. Even when Bear Peak is fully closed and reserved for racing, they still go through the terrain park and cut in front of every takeoff and landing adding to the close call factor even more. They also leave their crap all over the lodge despite signs saying that it isn't allowed.
The other issue is the lifts. You'd think this area would ski great with 2 HSQ's and plenty of acreage with few bottlenecks. This is not the case. Remember wannabe gangsta snowboard crowd? They also cannot seem to load even a high speed lift, so both lifts can't run at full speed and constantly stop and start. The lifts used to run great and never stop and start, but the skier/snowboarder quality has gone down significantly causing all the slows and stops. How anyone who isn't a first time beginner can't load a HSQ without slowing it or stopping it is totally beyond me.
My feeling is that they don't care about regular customers anymore since Mount Peter is the only other nearby option and has a fraction of the terrain. They basically have a monopoly and are taking advantage of it in a bad way. They jacked up their pass prices this year and reduced terrain availability. The majority of my days so far this year have been mediocre at best. While the recent change in administration has greatly improved the experience at North (new lodge, no more single runout), and they have plans to make it even better by reopening a previously abandoned trail and installing a HSQ or 6-pack to replace the triple, the experience at South has gone to heck. Half of it is so crowded that I fear for my life everytime I ski there, and the other half can only be skied by race teams that rent it out and no, you can't put lipstick on a pig and remodel the lodge to try to hide it.
If anything is pissing me off that's related to skiing, you can find it here.
I've lived in New York my entire life.
Locked
if you love skiing so much why arent you are part of it, race team, freeride, instructing etc? at least make you days at the crick 
mean something besides something to bitch about
