I figure today is a good day to update the off-season news from one of our “swing states,” which in the case of Pennsylvania, is actually a swing commonwealth….Biggest news I suppose, if you haven’t heard, is that Peak Resorts has purchased Snow Time Resorts which means that Whitetail Resort, Roundtop Mountain and Liberty Mountain are now in league with the likes of Hunter NY, Mount Snow VT, and Pennsy’s own Jack Frost and Big Boulder. Snow Time was started by Irv Naylor way back in 1964, and he did a great job of steering three vertically modest resorts in the banana belt for over half a century. Naylor sez “I am extremely pleased to pass along the stewardship of Snow Time and our three mountain resorts to Peak Resorts. Having watched the progress they continue to make at the formerly family-owned Hunter Mountain, I view them as the perfect operators to take Liberty, Roundtop and Whitetail to the next level.” Personal opinion here, Peak does a pretty good job keeping places open, up-to-date, and affordable…turning north a bit, Blue Mountain is working on the addition of a new intermediate trail for the upcoming season. The as yet unnamed trail will be farthest trail lookers’ left…keep looking east, and sort-of neighbor Camelback also adding terrain, supposedly some beginnner acreage as well as a new connector for the east and west pods…now turning west, smack in the middle of the commonwealth is venerable Blue Knob; they’re adding a carpet lift and an updated tubing operation. Not that I really care about tubing, but I take it as a sign that the place still has a pulse and they’re doing what they can to keep the business chugging along…western Pennsy news this weekend has a lot of pre-season excitement at Seven Springs, they’ll be humming with their annual ski swap, a bunch of club meetings, and this year’s Warren Miller flick…another ski swap, but you gotta wait until next Saturday, turn back way east to Ski Big Bear up on the Delaware River. With a week in between and the modern conveniences afforded by the Pennsylvania Turnpike, you can hit both.

Above: Voters line up at Ski Big Bear, Masthope PA. Some appear to be red voters, some blue, with a few independents mixed in.