Mountain Creek Announces New Trail and Resort Improvements

Vernon, NJ – October 6, 2010 – Mountain Creek is a bifurcated resort, with two independent base areas located about 2 miles apart, and connected by a lift-trail network that’s known to locals for being long and slow in both directions, which can be good or bad, depending on your point of view. This summer the resort decided to trade-in some 40-year-old hanging inventory in favor of more snow-time in connecting South Peak (Terrain Park) and Granite Peak with a new trail and retiring the Sojourn Double Chairlift.

The new (and as yet un-named) intermediate trail is 1 ¼ miles long, adding nearly 12 more skiable acres to the resort total. Initial clearing and cutting for the trail has begun and while resort management is pushing hard for completion in time for the current season, it will certainly be skiable with 100% snowmaking and lights for winter 2011-2012. In the meantime, the resort is popping out a fleet of gussied up shuttle buses as only Creek can do.

Once complete, this addition will allow skiers and snowboarders to truly ride peak-to-peak all season long. This is the first new trail expansion at Mountain Creek in more than a decade. “We’re really pumped up about this expansion plan, which is a great example of looking beyond challenges with traditional solutions, and finding a purloined gem of an opportunity to enhance our guests’ skiing and riding experience,” says Joe Hession, the newly anointed GM at Mountain Creek.

Other resort improvements include top-to-bottom grade work on Horizon, the resort’s most popular and primary artery trail at Vernon Peak. The extensive cut-and-fill work will provide for more efficient snow coverage on that first-to-open top-to-bottom trail, and allow for more terrain to open faster in the critical pre-holiday period.

At Mountain Creek South, snowboarders and freeskiers can look forward to a revised Park layout, a bevy of new features and the return to the pipe, with a ‘everyone in for fun’ 13-foot halfpipe ideally located on Bear Peak, where the core of the resort’s snowmaking firepower lives and a bit of the video-friendly lighting from the Grand Prix Superpipe will be relocated for better capture of night runs.

Long known as a favorite venue for events and competitions, the Park Crew has invested in a purpose-built venue dialed into the frequent Rail Jam requirements. Branded as ‘The Arena,’ the easy-access zone will boast stadium quality lighting and sound system, is wider after deep-sixing the old Magic Carpet, and re-graded allowing for optimum snow coverage as well as more creative setups.

For updates on the status of the new trail and other resort happenings, please visit us online at: http://mountaincreek.com