Didn't get rejected...but almost wish I had!!
My two friends and I arrived at 10ish that morning. We stood in line for about 15 minutes to get lift tickets..no big deal, it's a choke point. Then we entered the locker room to change and for my friends to get ski rentals. I changed and went outside to wait for them. I waited about 20 minutes and then decided I couldn't take it anymore, the snow was so good, so I went up the magic carpet..yes the magic carpet. It was the fasted way to get 40 ft up the mountain. All of the other lift lines were horrible and I didn't see a lift run for more than 1 minute without stopping for 5. So I came down from the magic carpet and waiting at the exit for the rental shop some more. about 35 minutes later my friends would emerge with their skis. We talked things over and decided to take the quad to the top and get out of the frontside. We got in line for the lift and discovered it was loading a set of people about once every minute. So we went to the center double lift and waited for about 25 minutes to get on, but at least we got on. It was beautiful snow and great skiing. We chatted with some folks in line that had 4 hour lift passes and expected to make 3-4 runs this trip TOTAL. Lucky for them, they were just trying out new boards and skis and had a trip to WV planned for Feb.
After coming down the double blue, we got back in line for the quad to the top. It actually moved this time, but slowly. While we were waiting in line the ski patrol brought about 3 or 4 people down on sleds all busted up (seperate incidents). Once we got to the top, we stayed on the backside. It was much better there. One friend is a beginner/intermediate skier and he did great on the backside and had a blast. The lift lines were moving very well the whole day. We thought about lunch at the snack bar there, but as we got in line and folks were eating on the deck, the honey truck shows up and starts to pump the bathrooms. Needless to say the smell made everybody scatter and we lost our appetite. Luckily we had plenty of water and granola bars to tide us over. After skiing the backside to 3 or so, we decided it was almost time to go. Back to the top we went and down dipsy to the front. We thought things might be lighter at this point, but it was still a complete zoo so we bagged it right there. A couple of interesting points about the day:
1. We asked a ski patrol if they would limit the number of tickets to the park and they said they would at some point, but they had never seen it happen because it was so high.
2. Bus after bus just kept pumping in groups all day long. It was horrible. Everywhere there were group leaders with radios squawking horribly trying to find kids etc. They should just have a group day and shut the park down to everyone but groups like amusement parks do.
3. They were trying to do racing, but it wasn't going well since the racers couldn't get up the lifts. There were also plenty of little kids (admit they were great skiers) with red racing bibs on all over the mountain. I think they were getting lessons. Rough day for them though with the crowds.
4. It turns out it was "scout" day and a bazillion scouts were camping nearby and skiing that day. We heard a few of them had hypothermia the night before (it was a low of 5 I think that night).
While leaving, there were cops at the entrance directing traffic. There was a backup from rt 15 through Emmitsburg all the way up to the Liberty parking lots of people trying to leave. There was the same backup going the other direction of people trying to come in for night skiing.
What a horrible horrible mess...definitely not worth the $185 in lift tickets and rentals.
Snow was great though
I'll try to post a link to some photos of the crowds later.
) we felt very comfortable. In fact, we had one of our best days ever.
