Conditions Report
Conditions report from Saturday, April 18
Despite a week that featured highs in the 80s for three straight days in Pennsylvania, Camelback Mountain was still open for skiing and riding this past weekend. It’s officially the longest season in the ski resort’s history, and it’s still going, with hopes of making it to May.
By the weekend, Camelback Mountain had gone down to one trail, Cliffhanger, a double diamond black trail that was groomed on the skier’s left and ungroomed on the skier’s right overnight. Thanks to the management and ski patrol at Camelback Mountain, I was permitted to go up the mountain before it was open to the public to check out the conditions.
Even after temperatures in the 80s during the week, Cliffhanger’s base still sits at a monstrous 10 feet. To be sitting here on the back half of April, with that base is an incredible accomplishment for a ski resort in Pennsylvania. The top layer was soft with a hard base on the skier’s left. The skier’s right was ungroomed, and there were some remnants of bumps as you traversed down the slope. That was around 8:40 a.m., the mountain opened to the public at 9:00 a.m., and by 10:00 a.m, all that had changed and most of Cliffhanger was bumped up. At the bottom of Cliffhanger, there were also three features on the skier’s right for people to hit.
I thought that Camelback Mountain was going to be packed on Saturday; however, I forgot that it went down to just one trail. The other ones, including Nile Mile, which is an intermediate trail, were open the previous weekend, but not this one. Coupled with the fact that Camelback Mountain has closed its rental shop for the season, probably kept away skiers and riders who do not own gear, or weren’t skilled enough to hit Cliffhanger. That kept Cliffhanger easy to traverse without the crowds that I was expecting. The bumps were pretty big, but I felt the previous weekend had bigger ones.
The conditions were soft, slushy, and surfy. Classic spring conditions with the bigger bumps at the top of Cliffhanger. Temperatures got into the 70s by afternoon after starting off in the upper 40s. It was partly cloudy, but the sun scorched a lot of people that day, hanging out on the deck of Trails-End-Pub and Grille. It was a great spring-skiing vibe and atmosphere that day, with a DJ on the deck, corn hole, and a huge human hamster wheel. The wheel was a shaved ice machine that a person ran inside to shave the ice. It was something I had never seen before and was a crowd-pleaser.
By 2:00 p.m. I was done skiing and relaxing on the deck when I noticed the mountain coaster and zipline were operating. That is when it dawned on me what was happening at Camelback Mountain Resort that day. A lot! Besides skiing and riding, the mountain coaster, and zipline, Camelback Mountain Resort was also running its Aquatopia Indoor Waterpark that has splash zones, a wave pool, an adventure river, and 13 water slides. It is also getting Camel Beach ready for summer operations, which is its outdoor waterpark, and has 37 slides and attractions. Plus, it runs all its indoor adventure rooms that feature eight different ways to have fun, like indoor bumper cars, a huge video arcade, laser tag, escape rooms, and more. There is so much to do at Camelback Mountain Resort that I sometimes forget all they offer.
Having said that, I have never ridden a mountain coaster before, let alone on the same day as I went skiing. However, I got the chance to do it on Saturday, and it was a blast! I will admit, I went pretty slow and was riding the brake a lot, but it was my first time, and I really had no idea what to expect. What was nice about the mountain coaster was that you could control the speed at which the car descended the mountain. For me, it wasn’t fast, but if I get a chance to do it again, I will send it full tilt. The ride was a little choppy, but nothing crazy, and it was clear that you could get some nice speed if you let the car just go down the mountain without braking. Totally worth it for anyone who has never had the chance to do it before.
Looking to this upcoming weekend of skiing and riding at Camelback Mountain, all systems are a go, and Jason Bays, VP and GM of Camelback Mountain Resort, is going full throttle towards May. “We are still planning on doing everything humanly possible to make it until May,” Bays told SnowBrains. He wasn’t lying; the mountain is firing up its snow guns again on Monday night with conditions dropping into the 20s. Temperatures throughout this week will be much cooler than last week, with lows in the upper 20s and highs in the low 60s.
What is happening at Camelback Mountain this season has been an absolute turnaround from what it has been in previous years. First to open in PA this season, and it is the only ski resort in the state still open, and has even beaten out some of the bigger mountains in the Northeast already. More early-season terrain open, great conditions, more days on the mountain, cutting season passes by almost in half, and now spring skiing in late April in PA. It has been greatly appreciated by the locals who have been wanting something in the area for a long time. It is also a great opportunity for people who may have missed out on skiing or riding in April from places that are farther away, like Tennessee, North Carolina, Ohio, and more. They have come from far away to hit the mid-Atlantic’s only open ski resort. Bays is building Camelback Mountain into not only the place to ski in the spring in the mid-Atlantic, but a place that anyone would want to ski at.
The big question is, will Camelback Mountain make it to May? It’s hard to say at this point, but with a base of 10 feet on Cliffhanger, there’s a legitimate chance. The weather, of course, will also be a factor. The forecast for the rest of April has highs in the mid-60s with lows in the mid-40s at Camelback Mountain. After having the chance to get to know Bays over this season, the chances are good that Camelback Mountain will be open in May. He has that drive, mindset, and charisma to make it happen.
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