Whitetail Mountain Resort is a four-season resort located on Two Top Mountain, a mountain in the Bear Pond Mountains of Pennsylvania. The resort opened for skiing in 1991, and was acquired a few years later by Snow Time, Inc., the company which also manages Liberty Mountain Resort and Ski Roundtop.
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This is not a 5-star reviewed resort anymore. Vail resorts bought Whitetail and the surrounding mountains and kept the names the same so the Google reviews look like it’s still a great place to visit. It’s a mess! We sat in the car line 30 minutes just to turn into the resort parking lot. Got parked by 10am and after lift tickets and rental gear pick up we didn’t even get to the long line at the lift until 12:45pm.
It’s severely understaffed and overcrowded. This is the biggest issue. Vail is clearly just packing in as many people as they can without any cap on lift tickets and not following with the appropriate staffing. All the bullet points below are just emphasizing how they need to limit the number of tickets they give each day and hire more staff.
When we visited before Vail took over and Covid, they had people directing parking. There was only 1 employee on his own this time and it was chaos. They also used to have a shuttle bus to the farther lots, which wasn’t running.
lift ticket pick up took at least 30 minutes
the rental line took between 1-2 hours. Today (Saturday) they only had 2 people working behind the desk for rentals.
ski lifts take about 30 minutes.
every run is basically just ice. If you’re a beginner, be ready to fall on hard surfaces while dodging a hoard of other beginners.
Covid rules: I’m all about protocols to keep people safe but they are just inconveniencing without any actual benefit. They create a line into their marketplace cafe for you to “show” proof of vaccination. You can literally show any photo of a vax card and walk in. They have no idea what your name is. It’s so dumb. Once you’re inside no one is wearing masks and there is no enforcement for any protocol at all. It’s basically come in at your own risk with a pretend vaccination check to get inside.
Once inside any of the cafeterias, they’ll charge you $15 for a hotdog, chips, and a water bottle so be prepared for that too…
whitetail used to have a concierge service for your skis and snowboards but it wasn’t there this time. I’m guessing again this has to do with staffing. Instead, there was a massive junkyard of skis and snowboards sprawled out near the picnic tables because there weren’t enough ski racks.
All and all, this used to be a great place to get out but now it’s a dumpster fire. If you have a family and you enjoy frustration and burning your money,...
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I have had one great experience here and one terrible experience here. I went during MLK weekend (yes, the busiest weekend of all time in the ski world) and they were extremely understaffed (as is everyone right now). But the staff were so efficient, so happy, and so courteous that the lines moved fairly quickly and I left with a renewed faith in humans. Also the snow was decent, somewhat icy but manageable. Also just FYI you can’t eat inside without vax card and I was totally unprepared for that
I went back this past weekend and it was BUSIER, somehow. There was a line just to drive into the parking lot, but I parked and got in fine. I bought my nephews snowboard lessons for Christmas, which was to be their first ever time snowboarding. Even though we arrived 45 minutes early, we were 8 minutes late because they were, again, short staffed. The rental shop had ski instructors setting up snowboards, and the staff was clearly frustrated and more aggressively dealing with customers than previously. When we got to the lesson, the boys were put in a group of THIRTEEN STUDENTS with one instructor, so when I saw this I stuck around to make sure they did ok in the lesson. Additionally, I thought the lessons would be grouped by age but they seemed to range from 10-adult. Because of the size of the group they couldn’t hear the instructor, and the instructor was totally overwhelmed and couldn’t give enough attention to any student (not his fault at all). I let the person directing ski school know that the group was too big and he (aggressively) said “we’re working on it.” After 45 minutes of multiple kids crying, my nephews were still lost as to what foot was supposed to go in the binding, and not able and to hear anything the instructor said, so I pulled them out. I did go to customer service and they profusely apologized, refunded me the lesson cost, and remedied my issues as best as possible, but I’m still sorry that this happened for their first snow experience.
Overall, they are understaffed and have not taken steps to reduce lesson size (turn people away, cancel lessons and say sorry but we can give you a cheaper one next time, have staggered lesson start times) and it feels like a business that is money, not customer, focused). This is the closest mountain to me, but I will driver farther in the future...
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The resort has lots to do. Though it hadn't snowed, the man-made variety was good, though natural snow is 100x better. At least they keep the slopes groomed and the trails were open.
The rental process is fairly smooth, but you need to fill out a form which you can do in line. Stone simple, no major surprises. Be ready to rent a locker for $10 for the day to put your shoes, if you'd like. Many just left them about, which is a risk, but it seems like everybody was respectful. Once you finish the paperwork, you'll head down for the equipment itself. Be sure to note there are TWO lines, check both if it seems busy. Once done, head for the slopes or your lesson.
The slopes were packed, it was a holiday weekend, after all. We took first timer lessons, and their instructors are awesome! Patient, thorough and personable. Shout out to Tom who did some amazing one on one instruction. After the lesson we did a few more runs, but by mid-afternoon, the lifts were jammed unless you were more advanced. It was a deterrent, for sure.
Time to eat...you have a variety of choices. Nothing off site, though as you'll need to leave campus and drive a few miles...not worth it in my opinion. Rather bring a lunch or buy. We chose to eat at Solstice, big mistake. High prices, mediocre, lukewarm food and a forever wait. While the staff was mostly courteous, the restaurant could use some management help as servers were often confused at where orders should go, the wait for dining or bar was terribly confusing and the kitchen was at least an hour behind. They were certainly not at their best or near it, not at all.
Overall, the resort gets three stars, it is a decent drive from DC and a great change of venue. They need to work on their customer experience to get 4 stars from me. I will go back again one day...after a...
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