After a two-year snow lull, Delaware Valley ski resorts are celebrating and opening more trails

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Over the past two years there has been very little snow in Philadelphia and surrounding areas.

But with several inches of snow on the ground from two winter storms this week, ski resorts in the region are celebrating.

Ashley Seier is the director of Marketing at Blue Mountain Ski Resort in Palmerton.

“Conditions, especially this week have just been awesome, so in addition to the about five inches of snow that Mother Nature has brought this week we’ve also been able to make snow every day, so it’s almost a full week of snowmaking, which we haven’t seen yet this year,” she said.

Blue Mountain opened new trails over the last three days. “We will have twenty-nine trails out of our forty trails open for this weekend,” Seier said.

Gary Kline, the director of marketing at Bear Creek Mountain Resort in Macungie, described conditions on the slope as the best they’ve had this season.

He said the biggest one-day snow total last year was 2.2 inches.

“So yeah, you’ve got to go back two years before we had any kind of measurable snow like we’ve had these last two storms,” he said.

Fresh snow adds more value than just saving money for the resorts.

“We invest a lot of money into our snowmaking operations, but whenever we get a lot of natural snow like this it helps us out a ton,” said Molly Coneybeer,director of marketing for the Camelback Mountain Resort.

“It makes the mountain look a lot prettier as well.”

How long will the great conditions last?

Mount Holly National Weather Service meteorologist Cameron Wunderlin said the cold weather we have right now will not continue.

“Once we get into the Tuesday and beyond time frame we’re back above freezing,” he said. “We could get multiple low pressures coming through the area, which will bring a constant chance of precipitation to the region in the form of mostly rain, showery and unsettled for a good period of time.”

Will we get more snow this winter?

“It does look like the winter is going to remain pretty wet, but the one thing we just can’t tell you guys is whether that’s going to be in the form of snow or not,” Wunderlin said.

All of the resorts near Philadelphia have trails for beginners, intermediate skiers and experts, and  they all operate ski schools and offer snowboarding and snow tubing.

Coneybeer said Camelback also has an indoor waterpark “where the temperature is always 84 degrees.,

“So even if you hate skiing and snow-boarding and you hate tubing, inside it’s like a summer oasis,” Coneybeer said.

Here is a short list of ski resorts within driving distance from Philly

Bear Creek Mountain Resort is open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily and is about a one-hour drive from Philadelphia, and

Blue Mountain Resort is open 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. during the week, and is about an hour and a half from downtown Philly.

Camelback Mountain Resort is open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and is approximately two hours from Philadelphia.

All ski resorts are advising clients to reserve lift tickets online because of higher than normal demand right now.