I just received the following email from Laurel Mt.

Dear friends of Laurel Mountain Ski Resort,

>>>Important Note About This Season!!
There have been some unforseen events that have caused the projected opening date,
for this year, to be uncertain. The sudden death of John Jones, the president of Home
Span has delayed the completion of the purchase of Laurel Mountain and we are waiting
for the transaction to go through to be able to operate. We will attempt to open as
soon as possible.

If you have signed up to purchase passes, please be assured no sales have been
processed and you will be contacted by our staff about the status of your
information. There will be no staff in the lodge until further notice.

As soon as information is available, we will let you know on our web site and by
email.
http://www.SkiLaurelMountain.com

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused you. Please be assured
that we are doing everything possible to open this season.

The staff at Laurel Mountain

Thats sad to hear. The mountain has two of the best slopes in the Mid atlantic. Its just a shame that such a great mountain has a hard time staying in business. I think they really only have two options. One is to make an investment and put snowmaking on Dream Highway, Innsbruck, Hegans Cut etc. This would really give them quite a bit of terrain and it could certainly compete with Blue Knob, Seven Springs, and especially Hidden Valley.

Or they could sell off their quad, stick with the double and keep the snowmaking they have now, in an attempt to try and cut costs, and pray for snow. They do get around 100 inches of snow a year, and heavily discounted lift tickets will get people to come as the ski experience is as good as Seven Springs, though it doesn't have the variety of trails at least open on a regular basis.

I would hope the owners would invest in more smowmaking as Innsbruck(1.5 mile green) and Dream Highway( a long windy blue) are two great trails. But I think the latter step of cutting costs is probably the most realistic.

If and when Blue Knob closes, which seems more and more likely all of the time, perhaps some of the BK crowd might be interested in skiing Laurel. Of course, provided Laurel is open.

I think and hope that the present owners will at some point get rid of Blue Knob. Having said that, Blue Knob will never close indefinately because there is just too good of terrain out there. Even you steve can't deny that if things were cleaned up, and a good snowmaking system was installed, Blue Knob could very well be the best mountain (especially for advanced and expert skiers) south of New York. Right now we just have to pray for a lot of natural snow.

I agree JonS, BK is a very challenging mountain. And all the "raw materials" are there. As for what the fate of the ski area will be... who knows.

Seems to me that's why you're so worked up about it Steve. I'd be pissed if I saw such potential just wasted. I've never been there but I've talked to people at a shop here that skiid it regularly as kids that were worked up about it too. Mainly its cause it does have such potential.

No one wishes Blue Knob would turn around more than me. However I know that there's nothing I can do about it except hope.

Having said that, there is still good skiing to be had there, and with some natural snow there is still incredible skiing to be had that can't be matched in the mid atlantic.

I think Steve wants skiers to boycott Blue KNob or something. I might be willing to do it if there were somewhere else that had terrain. But there isn't. There' no trail in the mid atlantic as tough as Extrovert, no trail as long as Mambo ALley(maybe Sallamander, trail as fun and windy as stemboggen, and I could go on and on.