Blue Mountain Ski Area

My boyfriend and I came to Blue Mountain this past weekend after having not been in about 7 years. We're both intermediate skiiers, and were excited to get back out there. The last time I was at Blue, they had the normal lift tags, but they got all high tech on me...not complaining! The new tickets are a card with an RFID chip. You can store the card in a jacket pocket, and when you ski up to the turnstile it recognizes the chip is on you and lets you through. This system works pretty seamlessly in my opinion.

We went pretty late in the season, and got amazingly hot weather...55 and sunny. It was a nice treat since we weren't freezing to death. The lines were also very short since most people had gotten their trips in earlier. All of the trails were open, and I think they were groomed pretty well. It was obvious that it was all fake, since the rest of the mountain was green, but it worked for me. The runs started to get a bit slushy toward the end of the day, but that was due to the hot weather and no fault of the mountain.

They also completely updated their outdoor area at the Summit Lodge, with fire pits, bars, and comfy chairs. It really added to our experience and made it feel like we were out west.

Despite a very unhelpful staff member, our day of skiing was great.

This is easily the best mountain in the poconos. There are a good amount of challenging and a few green trails. They have a bunch of terrain parks with a wide range of jibs and jumps.

Last time I went, they also had the air balloon, which my friends paid to use (I think it was $15 for 4 hours of unlimited hits).

Only slight inconvenience is that if you bend your pass, it breaks very easily.  Mine got bent about 2 runs prior to leaving, so I didn't want to take the time to get a new one.  I couldn't get thru the turn-tables, but the operators kindly let me go thru.

I want to go again!

I can count on one hand how many times I've been skiing/snowboarding/tubing.  So if that causes you to stop reading my review, that's ok by me.  You can go ahead and continue watching cute cat videos on You Tube.  But for those of you who want to trust my opinion, here it goes.

I've been to Blue Mountain two times- once for snowboarding about 6-7 years ago and once for snowtubing a few weeks ago.  My body was so sore that I'm pretty sure I mentally blocked that first visit, so my review will focus on my most recent trip.

Blue Mountain is one of the closer ski resorts in the area.  I believe it took us about an hour and 45 minutes from South Philly to get here on a February Sunday.  Upon arriving, we saw a GIANT line at the ticket booth.  Fortunately, I found out that you can buy snowtubing tickets in the rental shop, so we avoided the major line.  Score!

Snowtubing rates are based on whether you want to do a 4.5 hour session or a 9 hour session.  The 9 hour session is just a few bucks more, so if you are hanging out for the day, I'd get that one. We did 4.5 hours and it was more than enough.  After 3 hours on the hills, we were wiped out.

Now onto the tubing.  Blue Mountain advertises 21 tubing trails and 3 lifts.  I did not see that many in operation when we visited.  They have single or family sized tubes.  If you have kids, you can do single tubes and connect your tube with your kid's tube.  The staff was mediocre in my opinion.  They seemed to be more concerned with talking amongst themselves, rather than getting people up and down the hills quickly.  However, the facility and tubes seemed to be well maintained.

They have a lodge, with (expensive) food and drinks and (limited) seating, so keep that in mind.  I saw alot of families with coolers and it didn't seem to be a problem with the staff.  So bring your own food to save a few bucks.

For someone looking to go tubing, I would give Blue Mountain a try, because it is so close to Philadelphia, but I would imagine that some of the other ski locations in the area are superior.