UNION DALE, Pa. — Most winters, a friend of mine and fellow Penn Stater, “The Videographer” and I take a snow day. Since 2020, we’ve been skiing at Elk Mountain (official site). Our 2025 trip was February 9. It was my second day on skis this year and his first. I typically only get out 1 to 3 times a season, while he only gets a day.
Driving up and lift tickets
We left from the Videographer’s home near outside of Harrisburg at about 6:30 a.m. We arrived at Elk about 9:30 a.m. We’ve been there earlier before, but decided we didn’t need to get there for the early hardpack. Included in our travels was a stop at a Sheetz in Clarks Summit for breakfast and our brown bag lunch.
I was able to buy my lift ticket ($102 – up $30 from 2020) on my phone heading in. My friend wasn’t able to complete the transaction on his phone and headed to the lodge.1
Morning Skiing
I started off going up the North Chair quad lift while my friend sorted out his lift ticket. I opened up with ●Tioga, a curvy cruiser the was a bit icy. Not hardpack, but kind of skied-off already. I branched off to ■Lower Tunkhannock back to the North Chair quad.
On the way, the Videographer called me to say that he was at the top and we met up.3 From there, it was onto the blues with thinking the snow would be in better shape. For the most part, it was – ■Mahican to ■Lenape. That’s probably the longest ride on the mountain. A fun thing about Mahican is that while’s a blue, there are a couple ridges on that side that have about 9 foot drops onto the main trail.4 You could really injure yourself taking that sidequests. We declined and stuck the occasionally crowded main trail.
In no particular order, we moved on the trails off of ■Schuykill like ■Wissahickon, ♦Tecumseh, ♦Chippewa and ■Kickapoo. The latter, which wasn’t open during our 2023 visit, was probably our favorite. It has several hair pin turns, fewer skiers and good snow. I think the Schuykill-Kickapoo combination was our most skied on overall.
We also took a few runs down ungroomed ♦Wyalusing . That was a good challenge for us, lots of fun and generally not-congested.
We pondered skiing ♦Tunkhannock, which is the bump run at Elk. It didn’t look too bad from the lift – the moguls were as big as previous years and skier right wasn’t really bumpy at all. Ultimately, we skipped it.
Again.
Afternoon Skiing
Under partly sunny skies, we started moving over to the other side of the mountain. We selected ♦Lackawanna a period of deliberation. We were pleasantly surprised by the snow quality. It was ungroomed and probably the steepest of the day. We met the challenge ably.
Two parallel 2-seater lifts head to the top of the mountain from there, West and East. We found that West had a shorter line and seemed to have fewer interruptions. East, on the other hand, has foot rests. Both jolt you pretty hard to get on though and West has minimal cushion.
Giving our legs a break, move over to the only blue of the side and to paraphrase Wayne Campbell “hi, we’re on ■Delaware.”5 Following an enjoyable cruise, we skied ♦Tuscarora and either ♦Mohawk or ♦Iroquois. It was probably the latter.
By then, we were getting hungry, so it was time find our way back to other side and the car with sandwiches waiting. It was up the West chair and down Lackawanna again, cutting over the ■Lackawanna Spur back to Lower Tunkhanock.
Lunch
One of the things that keeps us coming back to Elk is being able to park near the quad lift and get our brown bag lunch. We hoofed up to the car, grabbed our lunch6 and sat at picnic table. This is a quick and cheaper way to have lunch. There are also portapotties, so getting by without the crowded lodge works out really well.7
Late afternoon
The rest of the afternoon was primarily spent on the trails off of the North Quad. We made one other excursion to Lackawanna, but with the sun getting real low and the clouds rolling in, it was getting crunchy, so once was enough for the rest of the day.
Back off the North Quad runs, we kept our eye on the clock and alternated between the blacks and blues. A few more runs down Kickapoo were highlights.
We knew we were running out of daylight figuratively and literally. The North Quad lift closes at 4:30 and we managed to get on with a few minutes to spare. Once at the top, we saw ski patrol rope off Mahican. Thankfully, they let us through there and on Lenape. The alternative is Tioga all the way to the middle of the mountain, far from the car.8
Rentals and incidentals
We rented skis (and boots for the Videographer – I have my own Nordica pair) from Idlewild Ski Shop. It’s the first of two ski shops on the way in, near a t-intersection where PA 374 turns. We’ve been happy with the service there since we started going to Elk.
I had a pair of Fischer 170s (I don’t remember the specific model) and my friend has some Atomic 155s which had 2.2 in their name.9 They were cromulent.
For outerwear10, I had my black Columbia parka and blue Columbia snow pants. Apparently, I reversed the “ski dad uniform.” The t-shirt, thermal shirt, long-sleeve t-shirt, sweatshirt and hockey jersey underneath kept me warm for the most part. Some Hot Hands in the gloves and boots would have been a good idea after lunch.
Along with some Giro googles, I had on my custom Penn State ski helmet. Speaking of…
A deep dive on custom Penn State ski and broomball helmets
Do you want to read 1,200 words about putting blue tape on white helmets?
There were a lot people wearing Philadelphia Eagles jerseys as outer wear.1112 As an aside, I lobbied to go Sunday, after several inches of forecasted freshies, but my friend said something about “I need a day to recover and I want to watch the Super Bowl…13“
Elk, as been noted every time, is a skiers mountain. If you were hoping to see people “shot with the physics gun”14 turning into “yard sales” this isn’t your mountain. It’s Jerry free…
Getting there
As mentioned previously, at 257 miles from the Capital Beltway, Elk Mountain is probably too far away for a daytrip for most Washingtonians.
Coming back, we first hit snow flurries around Wilkes-Barre followed by ice for most of the way to Harrisburg. While the state speed limit due to weather was 45 MPH, we were traveling at around 35 MPH and were behind a plow for dozens of miles. After I got to the Videographer’s house, I had to clear off my car and slowly drive out to I-81. Thankfully, around the Harrisburg border on I-83, it started letting up and by Dillsburg on US 15 it was just rain.
I think it was 7 hours from my last run to returning home. Like I said, not a day trip!
Rating and final thoughts
ADHSki has the Shred Score, while I have the ● to ♦ scale.
This time, I’m upgrade Elk – we’re at ■■. Here’s why I increased;
- All but one or two trails were open
- short lift lines
- we skied a lot better than last time15
- general vibe
What could it do to get a ♦?
- More cover – it felt like they had maybe one night of snowmaking after some rain earlier in the week
- High-speed lift
- Magically transport itself closer to D.C.
- Lift tickets stop rising 5% annually
Previous visits
Mid-Atlantic skiing day trips from D.C.
A commuter skier’s guide to ski areas close enough to do in a day from the Washington, D.C. area. Over a decade’s worth of profiles and rankings
Footnotes
- He remembered his card from last year and got a $5 discount though ↩︎
- Actually, you probably will catch me, I’m just a commuter skier who remembers “LEFT SKI” stickers… ↩︎
- Neither of us dropped our phones off the lift – a win! ↩︎
- When it was a more manageable 3 feet a few years back, I crossed my skis and went down. Thankfully, not off the side. ↩︎
- I had to (sorry Brenda) ↩︎
- Don’t brown-bag a toasted sub – the roll gets pretty hard sitting in your car.
↩︎ - There is also facilities in the main lodge right near one of the entrances. You don’t even have to trudge up and down stairs which I thought was a regulatory requirement for ski areas. ↩︎
- That happened to me in 2022. ↩︎
- Maybe this wasn’t that helpful… ↩︎
- A 2008 photo of my ski layers has nearly 4,600 views?! ↩︎
- I have thoughts on Eagles jerseys included in this long post about the next Washington Commanders stadium and how the uniforms should look. ↩︎
- Seems to have worked out for them. ↩︎
- Eating my own dog food? I was skiing during the Commanders NFC Championship game against Philly. ↩︎
- My 16 y/o used this expression when I was telling him about a much earlier ski trip that I attempted to ski moguls on. “Hit by the physics gun” is going in my vernacular moving forward. I think “yard sale” is going into his… ↩︎
- In fairness to us, we had skied the night before at Montage and that quick a turnaround is hard for Penn Staters who graduated in REDACTED ↩︎