Shred Report: Shawnee Mountain

It seems pretty crazy, but today was my first day of riding this season. Normally I'd probably have been up to Vermont a few times and even out to Tahoe. However a sad lack of winter in the Northeast had led me to this sorry state. We got 4-6" of snow this weekend in the NYC area..the first snowfall since late October!

My sister and I geared up and headed out to Shawnee Mountain in Pennsylvania. This was my first trip to this mountain. It's a typically small Pocono mountain with only 700 feet of vertical and 23 trails. We managed to snag some discounted tickets on Liftopia for $45 (normally $55 on weekends). Plus it's only about an hour drive.

Upon crossing the bridge from the parking lot, we were greeted by a girl holding a tray of warm chocolate chip cookies. This pretty much rocks. Take note resorts! We got our tickets, grabbed a map and decided to hop on the only high speed lift, a quad. There were a lot of people on line, but it moved very quickly since one of the lifties was queueing people up into groups of four. 

Once we were up on the ridgeline, you can access pretty much any trail down with a bit of skating. We worked our way around the mountain, hitting up pretty much every lift and trail. There is a small terrain park off to boarders right, on Country Club. It's made up of mostly beginner to intermediate boxes. Unfortunately it's also rather flat.  

On the other side of the mountain is the big kids park. There is a serious jumpline and a lot interesting rail and box features. Being the weekend, the park was full of gapers. We saw skiers going down the stairs of double stairset feature, as well as a lot of people hanging around the landings of jumps getting their skis back on. 

Conditions were pretty good, and I saw very little ice. I also spotted some really crazy people trying to ride in the trees with only 6" of natural snow. Just getting the little side stashes off the trail, I hit rocks. The entire mountain is really easy to ride, and everything funnels down to a single base. Their few black trails are pretty much a joke. The only scary part of the mountain is the last bend of Lower Delaware where people gather before attempting the "steep part". You had to do a lot of people dodging through the ice, which is always fun.

One of the interesting things about the mountain was the staff dressed in yellow jackets emblazoned with the words SLOPE SECURITY. I'd never heard of slope security before, so when I had wrapped my day up I went and asked. The yellow-jacketed skier said pretty much they help people out, tell people to slow down, give directions, etc. So basically they are what other mountains call Ambassadors. 

We called it a day around 2pm. I had a pretty good first day. It's nice to take it easy, rather than going nuts and killing myself. Skipping the resort restaurants, we instead stopped at the Gem and Keystone, a brew pub on the way back to Route 80. They have a nice menu of hot sandwiches for around $10 and you get a free beer when you turn in your lift ticket from that day.