I've heard alot of complaining about Seven Springs on this web site so I would like to relate my recent experience:

My friends, wives and I decided to go to 7S last Friday (3/15) to make use of our free exchange pass( we have a season pass at HV). I've heard complaints about conditions this year and bad snow making. Given the recent weather roller coaster of warm weather, then rain, then snow/cold then warming up again, I found the conditions to be pretty good. Most of the North Face was groomed and well covered except natural snow areas which were thin and choppy, as would be expected. So I stuck to the groomed. The express 6-pack lift serving Gunnar had no lift line and is probably the fastest lift in the Mid-Atlantic. We did quite a few runs on Gunnar and Yodeler as well as all of the other trails open on the North Face. This is not a Timberline or Blue Knob kind of place. This is more of a Snowshoe kind of place. 7S is a big resort for the MA area and offers some first class skiing considering where it is.

I've heard complaints about expensive food. For lunch we went to the ski lodge. They had a special, for $6 you got a cheeseburger, a large order of fries and a large soft drink. That is a great deal.

After skiing, we watched some snowboarder utilize the competition size half pipe. Quite amazing to watch since this half pipe is competition size. I think it is great that we have something this exciting in the Mid-Atlantic. I don't get all of the complaints about this. Do we just want to be rinky dink around here?

Snowmaking - I guess I never really noticed how many snow guns there are on this mountain. The snow making facilities on 7S's mountain far eclipse any other mountain I have seen. Perhaps they may not be the latest in technology, but in some places the snow guns are every 50 feet! How can anyone complain about the snow making facilities at 7S. They have 400 acres of snow making?

Apres Ski - after skiing we went to 7S premier dining establishment, Helens. They had a great piano player who played every request we asked. The servicer was supherb. The food, while expensive, was excellent.It was our wedding anniversy so the piano player played every request that we asked. I can say this was a truly, first class and memorable dining experience.

Finally, I would say I would not likely ski here on the weekend due to the crowds. THis is a big time resort for the Mid=Atlantic that draws the crowds and deservedly so. But on a weekday, this is a great place to ski. I don't get all of the belly aching I hear about this resort. Some people just like to complain, I guess.

agree with you smith. I just got back from four days of riding the superpipe and have little to complain about. The only thing that bugged me was that they shut the Blitzen lift(which serves the Spot park and Superpipe) down at 4:00. As far as food, some people need a reality check. Ever have lunch at a Snowtime resort? At Springs, you get more for less money!

Most ski resort food is typically expensive, they need to make their money in a 4 or 5 month season. Nice to be able to pack some goddies to eat. I just think it is great that we have a 7S along with the more soulful options like Blue Knob and Timberline. How would you like to live in a place like Alabama or Texas or Oklahoma. Vast areas with long drives to get to ski area. While we may not be the Rockies, we are blessed here with interesting ski choices. While I think we can always suggest improvements, complain about bad service or other justifiable complaints, I just do not think 7S deserves the trashing it has been getting with some of the more ascerbic comments.

yes, such a great place. And now , even though they are wall to wall snow, they are basically only operational to 50% either in amount served in lifts or, in hours. Heck, they dont even have plans on being open past the 30th!

As far as their food costs. That special you are enjoying is NOT a regular occurrence. It's normally $6 for a burger alone at the cafe. A restaurant burger is much more; however, even so their prices arent TOO bad considering.

This 'resort' wasnt a resort before. Its only recently that they new owners realized that they had a monopoly and how much hype is placed at even lesser resorts to pack people in, so they jumped on the bandwagon. This in turn has made people angry , basically anyone over 35 because they remember how it used to be.

Me personally, I like it better but, to each his own. Faster lifts and more trails. Good for teh days when its not as busy, which sadly isnt so often anymore..

It was nicer in many ways before, but for me its about quality of runs. If we could just get the prices another $20 higher, then maybe it will thin out more and I can truly enjoy myself.

As far as snowmaking. It sucks. get a season pass there next year and ride there. you will watch as they blow water out for hours, killing the conditions. On top of this, they simply dont turn them on. They open very few runs and rely on natural snow for the remainder. Sometimes, they get desperate and blow snow, esp when a busy weekend is coming up.

The crowds or lack there of that you enjoyed, yea thats a fluke. For some reason people are making a mass exodus away from riding a 7s at the end of this year. Maybe because of how it has been so packed during the 'good' months that people dont want to deal with it when their 'ski energy' is so low at this time of the year.

I cant believe you drive from MD to HV. They entire mountain can be served with tow ropes lol. Get a pass to 7s. If you act now, and pay in cash or check, you save 5%.

All in all, it's not a bad place...but if you go mid season be prepared for a COMPLETELY different experience vs what you are used to at HV. The crowd you saw on Friday, multiple that by at least 20. Not joking. During a holday or from mid jan to mid feb, forget it. You'll be lucky to get 6 runs in 3 hours. You will see the profit efforts vs skiers experience first hand and it will frustrate you ...trust me.

As far as the halfpipe being open? You must have not been there this past weekend, it was closed unless they waited until Sunday to close it.
Yea the darn thing was only open for like 6 weeks, and every time I would go there was a CLOSED sign up for the spot. Drove me nuts having to poach that and then walk over to the polar bear express (which they slow down during peak operation)

Also FYI for those interested, the money grubbing scum have the following hours posted:
I can hear them SCREAMING now. MELT!!! MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELT DAMN YOU!
When they normally falsify their snowfall totals and conditions, you know I'm not joking when you see them post conditions like this:
Village Trail
Groomed Granular
[LIGHTS]
[BEGINNNER]
Boomerang Trail
Groomed Granular
[LIGHTS]
[EXPERTS ONLY]
Goosebumps Slope
Frozen
[LIGHTS]
[ADVANCED]
Avalanche
Groomed Granular

WOH, 7S, I thought it was ALWAYS either groomed hardpack or packed powder? Wow, you really must be trying to drive people away for the rest of the year.

NUCK BOB FUTTING!

Skiing and Snowboarding Schedule

9 a.m.-4 p.m., March 20-21

9 a.m.-7 p.m., March 22-23

9 a.m.-5 p.m., March 24

Closed March 25-28

9 a.m.-4 p.m., March 29-31

If you don't like it, vote with your pocketbook and go somewhere else. Don't be mad at 7S; If skiers are willing to pay the ticket price and show up year after year to wait in line, then can't blame Mr Nutting for packing 'em in and taking their money. It is a business after all, not a public service, and skiing is a tough business with lots of costs and a short season.

I provide rentals in the area and see this as well. Everyone want's to be there christmas week, and especialy New Years Eve. I can rent 20X over on New Years Eve and the prices that people are willing to pay is crazy, and the skiing is usualy not that good early in the saeson. Suggesting that they go to Hidden Valley or try booking in March, I could just as well be talking to a wall.

I hope HV would do move ahead on their expansion plans this year. It may still be no where the size of 7S, but at least it would put them closer in the running. If they could get just 25% of 7S skiers to head their way, they would have a great business and we would have some real competition for Mr Nutting.

I was there Friday thru Sunday and the pipe was open all of those days. The Spot was closed but they had a gap in the fence by the drop in mound where you could legally access the Sp. It was somewhat irritating about Blitzen closing at 4 but that lift was open too during the day. It's all relative. Go hit any snotime resort and then springs. there is no comparison at all. 6 bux is cheap for a burger at roundtop.....try 9 bux!

What nutting needs is competition. So he buys the assets of laurel mountain with no intentions of opening it, and hidden valley (as it is now) does not provide enough challenge. If buncher moved forward with the expansion plans that would change things. The rumors posted earlier that 7S was purchasing Hv scared the heck out of me because it made sense. If nutting owned everything in the area your burger would be $15, all parking any where near the slopes would cost money, the bus ride from the parking$, and skiing would already be done for the year. Let's face it, for nutting, it is not about anything except making money. See all of you at opening day. Go buc's.

This ain't communism. Yes they are trying to make money. Go to Vail. It costs $25 to park in town then it's $98 for a lift ticket ...and they really don't need to make any snow. Snowshoe and 7S are the big timer's around here. On an uncrowded day, they offer a great skiing experience. But they are also 'big business' which try to appeal to alot of people. That is how they make money and can invest in 2 express six pack lifts. If you want ice, tree skiing and slow lifts go to Blue Knob. I personnally like having available both types of skiing experience.
Laurel Mtn is an unfortunate situation that I will complain about. They are just sitting on it to keep it out of the hands of HV. THis is very unfortunate. I also would prefer that HV remain independent. Once they expand the terrain, they will draw more skiers from 7S. Not sure what they are waiting for. I guess Buncher is a conservative organization.

The word is Buncher is in need of $ for his waterfront development project in Pittsburgh. What would be the fallout for local skiers if HV fell into Nuttings hands? Buncher needs money, and Nutting has it.
I know running a ski resort in this area is expensive( just look at the number of lost ski areas). Competition is good for the consumer but bad for the business owner.
Good for Nutting for having and making money and listing to his accountants.
I ski the summit one week a year. I have a second home in laurel highlands and ski the Spring weekly. I choose the springs for my season pass but would hate to see another local area "lost " and the results for all of us.

All the talk about how busy 7S can be hads got me wondering how the local resorts stack up in the ranking of overall skier visits.

Somewhere I remember hearing that 7S logs the 2nd highest number of skier days in the east next to Killington and wanted to confirm.

At least what I have found so far from different sources is that 7S has 450-500K skier days/yr, which at least according to the following article would place it after Killington, Okemo, and Holiday Valley NY ( which was a big surprise to me since other than Buffalo I don't understand where they are drawing from) http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/americas-most-visited-ski-resorts/22


I wonder how that compares with Snoeshoe?

If you include HV at part of the same "regional area", that might push things close to be 2nd to Killington in the East. I found an old article fron 1989 that claimed 130,000 ski visits at HV, so not certain how accurate that may be.

Of course this is all less than the big Colorodo resorts that log over 1M/yr, but they generally have more multi-day skiers so these are more likely to be the same person on different days, and more midweek as well. Suspect Killington and Okemo get more of that than 7S does, and perhaps SS does as well since anyone willing to make the drive might want to stay for a few days.

So overall it is some pretty impressive crush of humanity that needs to be delt with on the limited vertical, and creating crowded weekends. Certainly shows the benefit of being drivable for major population.

Lets take a moment to just take a look at the date, and then look at 7Springs webcams.

https://www.7springs.com/page/category.detail/nav/5021/Mountain-Cams.html

Ahhhhhhhhhhh

Look at that nice new coating of new fluffy snow on top of that frozen old garbage. But just LOOK at that mountain. It's absolutely beautiful. Suffice to say, they will likely close during the week but, I wouldnt be surprised if they stay open until mid April and try to claim this as one of the longest ski seasons thanks to their improved snowmaking (which failed miserably this year fyi).

What they didnt get this year was rain and warm temps. Sure, the early season was hit a bit from this, but the Feb/March month has been GREAT for them and that is THE reason why this mountain looks SO GREAT.

It looks so nice. I hope to be riding well into April, as long as they dont cease operations.

Last year I was riding in 70's and sunny, with streams running through the slopes. Some areas, ski patrol was shoveling snow to connect to parts of a slope. This year, I really wonder how long they will try to take things. Hell even snowtubing is looking great!

Every area in the Mid-Atlantic has its pluses and minus. We can fill up pages and pages of a thread with our complaints on ever resort in driving distance of the people on this list. I love Blue Knob, but one of their lifts have been broken all season and you wonder if they are ever going to replace it. Timberline is a great ski area, but turtles move faster than their two lifts, Snow Time resorts are expensive for what they offer and open/close too early, etc...

I'm just glad that we have a variety of ski areas in driving distance that we can complain about that offer a variety of experiences. While I love Blue Knob and Timberline, the slope slide lodging and mini resort experience of Snowshoe is nice as well, plus cruising down Cupp Run when it isn't crowded is a great skiing experience any day.

We've got plenty of places we can ski at and each offer a different experience.

Edgar - very interesting. I too am surprised by Holiday Valley. I have never been there but have heard good things. Only about 4 hours from Pittsburg. Our size here is limited by our mountains and of course our elevation. It's not a matter of latitude but altitude. If we could move Beech or Sugar Mountain to PA, and have elevations over 5,000 feet we might move up a notch. Seven Springs gets some big numbers for this area and Snowshoe draws heavily from the south. I doublt we'll ever get anything bigger than those two.

My understanding is that Snowshoe exceeds 500,000 skier days.
The Colonel

+1 Well said, MephitBlue

Woody

A second endorsement for MephitBlue's comments!
The Colonel

I just want more resorts in the area so that I can complain more!
Yes, indeed well said MB!
Bare with us... we are like children

Given that we're somewhat in the banana belt, we do OK here. I unfortunately have never been to Snowshoe, so I can't complain about them. 5-1/2 hours is a long drive. I'd rather drive another 1 hr and ski at Mt. Snow in Vermont. But places like Ski Windham,Hunter Mountain,Belleayre,Plattekill, Bristol Mountain, Holimont, and Holiday Valley are really little more than a 4 or 5 hour drive to get to. All of these resorts, I believe, are bigger than our MA options. This gives us more options which I do not hear much about on DCSKI. I guess we have enough to complain about

From NOVA, Plattekill, Hunter are 6+ hours away. I think that is the big reason you don't hear much about them on DCSki.

From NOVA, Snowshoe is 4-4.5 hrs? T-Line, WG, CV are 2.5 to 3 hrs. That's why you hear more about them.

For those who haven't been to Holiday Valley, GO!!!

Every trail/slope is full mountain vertical. Ellicottville, NY is a great town for food and beverage (only a mile away) and Hollimont (private ski area on the weekends) is wonderful also.

From 03/30/2013 ski article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette:



http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/spor.../#ixzz2P1EPGmQ1

Sorry Snowsmith, if things were so right at 7S, that wouldn't happen. Couldn't imagine any member of the Dupre family (previous owner) getting booed. And yes, I'm sure owning the Succos helped contribute to some of the boobirds.