I was thinking about visiting some of my family next weekend in Altoona, PA.  I usually take my skis and ht Blue Knob for a day.

They have one trail open today and were closed all week.  

They were barely open last year and this year it's worse.  It's such a cool place to ski.  What a damn shame.

Hoping for better days ahead for BK.

Is their snow making infrastructure totally shot?

Again, similar to the post I left re. the “Whitetail Closing” thread, few on this site are willing to acknowledge that three TROPICAL depressions pushing warm rain through the mid-Atlantic region in the last three weeks are enough to KILL a season for some resorts, especially the most vulnerable like BK. Sadly, next week’s low pressure system is slated to bring more of the same.

HVDad - Laurel Mountain also closed for the week, last week. They made enough snow to reopen this weekend. Resort's like the "Snowtime" resorts, Hidden Valley, Snowshoe and others have invested heavily in fan gun installations and were able to get through nearly a month of wet balmy weather. Snowtime resort's don't have the benefit of elevation and lake effect snow. So it's even more a challenge for them to weather the increasing number of warm weather fluctuations. This is the 3rd year in a row of lots of rain during the ski season. I'm afraid this appears to be the new norm. I don't think the old water-compressed air system at BK can keep up with these weather fluctuations. They really need to invest heavily in an airless fan gun system and I don't believe the owners have deep enough pockets to do that. They are owned by the same group that could not come up with the cash to close the deal to buy HV from the Bunchers back in 2012. Hopefully, this will be another back loaded winter with good conditions in late February and March. While this may be good for ski fanatics like us, the general public doesn't think about skiing unless they see white in their back yard and these folks start thinking about other activities in March. I hope BK can make it; they've been around for a long time.

On the morning of the Martin Luther King holiday, after at least three good nights (and some days) of snowmaking weather, it's indeed sad to see that BK begins today with 3 runs open, and 3 more expected to open later in the day.  

Snowsmith is right: other areas (e.g., Whitetail) also closed this past week.  But WT began banging out the snow as soon as they could and, as a result, have opened the Expert's Choice lift and gotten trails such as Fanciful online.  Liberty, Wintergreen, and Wisp are following suit.  Thank goodness for this stretch of cold weather!  

I share the love that JimK, Blue Don 1982, and so many others here at DCSki have for Blue Knob.  When it's on, I'm there.  But I haven't skied Blue Knob in the past two (maybe three) seasons.  This season's prospects look marginal until and uness we get a major dump of natural snow here in the Mid-Atlantic.  HVDad and Snowsmith's posts about the erratic "winter" weather may well be correct in that this 2019-20 pattern may be what's in store for us for the foreseeable future.  

I'm hoping for the best for Blue Knob.

Woody

I really enjoyed Blue Knob 8 years ago and have wanted to go back ever since. I hope they can get it back up and running.

In the late 80s I went to BK with a church youth group. It was the first time I'd even been skiing in my life. I remember standing on the bunny slope with blue jeans over my thermal underwear, big puffy coat and toboggan ski hat. It was tremendously cold. We skied all day until it closed. I remember my pastor telling me to forget the snow plow nonsense and taught me the basics of how to turn to a stop. I could not be stopped after that.

One of the best days of my life and a feeling I've never been able to capture again.

I've been wanting to get back to were it all began but have not had much reason over the past few years. I was hoping new management would be able to investing in better snow making operations. The mountain has so much potential. I continue to hold out hope.

B

Awesome post BDW611.  The first time I ever went skiiing was at Blue Knob too, December 1967.  The great conditions at Blue Knob in February 2010 will be part of my ski memories forever.

Current ownership not gonna make it.  Even when they have snow the problems are everywhere and not getting addressed.  Lost ski area candidate.

RodneyBD wrote:

Current ownership not gonna make it.  Even when they have snow the problems are everywhere and not getting addressed.  Lost ski area candidate.

That would be heartbreaking.  I have had some of the best ski days of my life there and have told my kids I want some of my ashes scattered on Extrovert.  There are other places too.  It's a long list.

I used to be such a fresh snow snob at Blue Knob that I had one indicator trail that I used to determine if I should leave the local area for a day. A dig at the old mgmt there that 50% of the time their website report, social media report (if it existed) and actual ground conditions rarely matched on my indicator trail (they say it's open, and it's not). Nowadays, I've adjusted my goals way down to be willing to go even for the Expressway triple if the trails in that basin are also open.

Perfect North, anyone? DCNR?

Next year...Perfect Tline in the morning until the crowd factor kicks in and then over to CVR in the afternoon for the untracked.