Industry News
Mountain Creek has a reputation of being that small New Jersey ski resort outside of New York City, but this stereotype severely underserves what the resort has to offer. It might be the best ski resort in the United States, located near a metropolitan area. Some New York City skiers and snowboarders may choose to go to the Pocono Mountains to hit the slopes; however, the numbers don’t lie: Mountain Creek boasts similar stats compared to some of those ski resorts. “We have 1,000 vertical feet, and we’re 47 miles from the George Washington Bridge,” Evan Kovach, General Manager at Mountain Creek Resort, told SnowBrains in an interview. “You can park your car and be here in an hour with some pretty compelling terrain.” Kovach has been with the resort since 2007. He started at 18 right out of high school and has done almost every job on the mountain: cash room, ski patrol, group sales, revenue management, lodging director, marketing director, before rising to General Manager five years ago.
Mountain Creek’s vertical drop competes with Pocono Mountain ski resorts like Blue Mountain, which has 1,082 feet, Elk Mountain and Montage Mountain have 1,000 feet, and Camelback has a vertical drop of 800 feet. This stat is impressive considering that all four Pocono Mountain resorts have higher summit elevations than Mountain Creek. Another plus is that the resort also boasts more trails than those mountains, with a total of 46 runs. The resort has 165 acres of skiable terrain, spread across four peaks: Vernon Peak, Granite Peak, South Peak, and Bear Peak. This is impressive, considering most ski resorts in the area do not have that many.
This year marks the Mountain’s 60th anniversary. Going into the 2025-26 season, the resort is continuing to make upgrades and improvements to the mountain. Last year, it invested $5 million in full Technoalpin automation (fan guns, underground pipes, and iPad/phone control), bringing total investment over the last five years to $10 million. This allows Mountain Creek to open faster, with higher-quality snow, and push air to secondary/tertiary terrain much earlier. More fan guns were placed on South Peak (terrain-park-focused peak), and the resort added a brand-new Prinoth BisonX and Bison XW cats. Mountain Creek isn’t trying to be a Killington; it’s trying to be the absolute best urban-access big-mountain experience on the East Coast, and the investments in automation, grooming, and guest experience back that up.
This urban mountain is full of hidden surprises and interesting facts. It features one of the rarest lifts on the planet, the Cabriolet. It is an open-air, standing, detachable eight-person gondola; only five exist worldwide, according to Kovach. It was installed by Intrawest in 1999 and is now the highest-capacity bike uplift in America and a huge waterpark people mover. It definitely has character and has proven to be a very productive asset to the mountain. “We can operate bike park, weddings, and our high-volume waterpark, which does over 200,000 visits a year, all on that lift, and it doesn’t really feel capacity pressure from each whatsoever.” The Downhill Mountain Bike Park was one of the first lift-served bike parks in the United States, where riders from all over the world come to hit the mountain trails.
Forget about just New Jersey, but also for all the resorts in the mid-Atlantic region, this mountain resort might be the only one that allows uphill access for its season pass holders. It all started when the Mountain Creek executive team (including the CEO) would take uphill tours together multiple times a week in winter as their actual meetings. Locals began to take notice and inquired about the mountain’s uphill policy. “The resort decided to allow uphill access, and the community quickly grew from almost zero to 30 to 50 people skinning up the mountain every morning,” Kovach said.
The resort offers a free kids’ program for the X Games & Olympics. The program has seen local Jersey native, L.J. Henriquez, go through and learn at Mountain Creek’s free Twisted Kids clinic. Lenim “L.J.” Henriquez Jr. is a 16-year-old snowboarding prodigy who was born in Brooklyn, New York. Red Bull and Burton sponsor Henriquez, and he has become one of snowboarding’s most exciting young talents. He began riding at the age of two at Mountain Creek, earning a rookie invite to X Games Aspen 2025. The resort’s free program fueled his progression, turning casual East Coast sessions into structured skill-building.
Leadership matters, and Mountain Creek’s leadership is on point in how it operates. There is a unique mindset and culture at Mountain Creek that brings a special vibe and atmosphere to this independent resort. It is a team player in the ski industry that supports other resorts and their programs. “I openly tell our season-pass holders to buy Epic or Ikon, too, if they want to travel. We’re not afraid to market their passes on our social media,” Kovach said. The big picture is that when more people ski or snowboard, the whole industry benefits. Mountain Creek also openly markets Vail and Alterra passes on their social channels because “we want more people sliding on snow, period.” Kovach added.
Mountain Creek isn’t pretending to be out West. It’s doing something way more interesting: proving that a tech-savvy, skier-owned, urban-access resort 47 miles from the George Washington Bridge can deliver legitimate steeps, world-class parks, cutting-edge snowmaking, and a soul that most giant corporate areas lost decades ago. This one’s definitely worth a visit for anyone within an hour of NYC who thinks “there’s nothing decent close by.” Mountain Creek is legitimately punching in a heavier weight class than most people realize.
Quick Mountain Stats
- Season Length: December – March
- Vertical: 1,040 feet
- Summit Elevation: 1,480 feet
- Skiable Terrain: 167
- Snowmaking Coverage: 100%
- Average Snowfall: 65 inches per year
- Night Skiing is offered daily
- Total Trails: 46
- Total Lifts: 8
- High Speed Quads: 2
- High Speed Eight-passenger gondola: 1
- Fixed Grip Quads: 2
- Fixed Grip Triples: 1
- Fixed Grip Doubles: 1
- Magic Carpets: 3
- Snowtubing park
- Multiple Freestyle Terrain Parks
- Outdoor Waterpark
- Alpine Mountain Coaster
- Snowsports School
- Ski and Snowboard Rentals
- SNO-GO Bike Rentals
