Just a quick summary of the skiing conditions I found when skiing Whitetail, Liberty and Roundtop the last few days.  All three resorts have a surprising amount of trails open, with impressively deep bases, considering how little snowmaking weather they have had to work with.  Roundtop is in the best shape with almost all trails open except for Recruit and Gunbarrel.  It is definitely the place to head to if you are looking for steeper terrain.  Liberty has all of its green terrain and  three  blue runs from  the backside; it still has three blue and a few black trails to open.  Whitetail has all of its green trails open, but unfortunately only one blue trail, upper and lower Angel, and lower Angel has to be shared with the park features.  Looks like they were close to opening Fanciful and  some of the blacks but did not quite make it, and looking at the weather forecast there probably won't be new snowmaking for at least one week.  

The freshly made snow at Whitetail and LIberty this past weekend was very high quality, in other words, powdery.  Me and my friends were very impressed.  Even on Sunday when it got warmer the snow at Liberty held up nicely because of the low angle of the sun this time of year.  

Yesterday at Roundtop the snow was nice, hero spring snow, and it never got slushy  because of the low sun angle.  Great for working out turns on the black diamonds.  Actually, one of the best days I have had at Roundtop in a while and while I only planned to ski for three hours, I ended up skiing a full six hours.  I spent an hour touring up the easist and emptiest green slope to get in uphlll shape, until a ski patroller asked me to stop.  Neither of the three areas have clear uphill policies, it seems to depend on the whim of the ski patroller, although I have found Whitetail to be the most flexible in allowing uphill travel at least early in the day.  

The slopes were all fairly empty the last few days.  Get out there before winter really hits (hopefully by early January) and the hoards crowd the mountains!

Thanks for the report Mitch.  Appreciate it.  Happy Holidays.

Good trustworthy report, thank you!

Laurel has limited runs, upper/lower Broadway and upper/lower wildcat. conditions have been groomed heaven.

only injuries are from cheeks split from smiling

Maybe this has been covered elsewhere, but what is the cost of skiing at Liberty / Roundtop / Whitetail now that they've gotten rid of the Advantage Card (and if I remember correctly, are doing some sort of "fluctuating with demand" pricing scheme)? I'm definitely not buying their Peak Pass.

Mongo wrote:

Maybe this has been covered elsewhere, but what is the cost of skiing at Liberty / Roundtop / Whitetail now that they've gotten rid of the Advantage Card (and if I remember correctly, are doing some sort of "fluctuating with demand" pricing scheme)? I'm definitely not buying their Peak Pass.

They have fixed walk-up ticket window rates, but if you buy a ticket in advance on-line, you might get a cheaper price.  On-line ticket sales are demand-based and fluctuate by day, how far in advance you buy them, and how many other people have purchased for that day.  They have different price tiers, with a certain number of tickets available at each price tier.  At least that's what their web sites imply.  It's all about extracting the most profit possible, of course, but if you buy a ticket at least a week in advance you might get it $25 cheaper than if you walk up to the ticket window and buy it.  For Whitetail pricing, see here.

I ended up buying an Epic Local Pass, which includes unlimited skiing at Liberty/Roundtop/Whitetail and lots of skiing out west.  The Peak Pass wasn't compelling to me, but the Epic Local made more sense since I have family out west and will probably get in 2-3 western trips this winter.  But the Epic Pass is only sold from spring through October or November.

I'm not sure how well the dynamic pricing model is going to work at the local resorts.  Conditions can be so iffy in the Mid-Atlantic so I'd rarely want to buy too far in advance.  The Advantage Card was popular for a reason.