Maryland??

TheButterHashira

Active member
I just moved to Frederick Maryland from North Carolina. I know of Wisp and that it's worth visiting but I think Liberty is the closest.

Anyone else on here in the general maryland-PA area and know of shops and which mountains I should consider getting a pass or working for?
 
Liberty and Roundtop have good parks which are closer for you probably. Ski Center in DC is a solid shop that I always liked. Has mostly all mountain skis but a solid brand selection and a good ski swap in the fall.
 
I work and ski at whitetail! I live really close to hagerstown MD right over the PA line. there's also a good ski shop in downtown hagerstown called Bikle's. when you buy a season pass for whitetail, it's good at whitetail liberty and roundtop. happy skiing :)
 
I havn't really seen much content from Wisp, but park wise it doesn't look that great.

Roundtop, Liberty, Whitetail are all on the same season pass, so I would definitely go with that if I were you. Roundtop has the best park out of the three (I am biased). Liberty's isn't bad, could be a lot better with the amount of room they have designated for park. I have been told that Whitetail is good if you are a beginner at park since they have a lot of boxes, but nothing is maintained well.

Roundtop has the least amount of park room which is primarily used for intermediate/"expert" features which are usually maintained well and we try to stack it with as many features as possible. Last year you could hit 5 rails and 3 jumps in one run. The beginner park is a small area, but it is serviced by a J-bar so you can get a ton of hits in on those features.

Whitetail and liberty get super crowded during weekends and peak times, Roundtop not nearly as much. At any of the resorts you won't see a jump much bigger than 30ft, if you do it is probably sketchy with a really short landing. If you want bigger jumps the drive to Big Boulder is worth it. I have never been to Seven Springs, but have always heard good things, that is closer to you than Boulder.
 
Heres a video of the park mid season last year.

This is near the end of the season.

761204_400w_1000h.jpeg


Usually at least one thing in the park gets changed every week, with 3 or 4 big builds depending on the weather.
 
Heres a video of the park mid season last year.

This is near the end of the season.

761204_400w_1000h.jpeg


Usually at least one thing in the park gets changed every week, with 3 or 4 big builds depending on the weather.
 
liberty is in your backyard. seven springs is the best skiing within a 6 hour drive. I imagine it would be around 2.5-3 hours away from you. seven springs is the best.
 
I grew up in the dawn of parks and freestyle skiing, I have rode with my share of pro riders and at one time was good enough to become a sponsored rider but I rode for the soul and didn't care about videos and magazines and such. We would build park features soon big then try to conquer them, my favorite was a 20 foot tall gap jump over the road and between the condos, so if you didn't hit it right and stay up you were in for some carnage.

Roundtop and Liberty are good because they are close, a place to get some turns but it gets old really quick as they are tiny mtns. The Parks there are not bad but very one faceted in features. Medium Table tops and step ups and a lot of rails. Roundup used to have 2 had pipes, one lil one and the biggest superpipe in the region which was awesome, but they got lame and removed all their half pipes, I lost interest and such when they did that cause I love boosting the pipe. Roundtrips parks are all built on beginner trails meaning very little gradient to the hill. I may be Biased but I lived and worked in Garrett County at the Wisp for years then moved back to eastern MD and started riding at roundup and liberty. I still remember the first time I rode Roundtop and thinking how tiny it was compared to Wisp, and Wisp is not that big. The half pipe was really what kept me sane there and I was pissed when they took it out to put a third lame rail park in its place. Roundup could make their parks better by adding and keeping different features like spines and 1/4 pipes, but every single park on the mountain will have the same kind of features, 2-3 big kickers then a bunch of rails and barrels, nothing off kilter (take off and land at an angle) everything is straight forward, and rutted out, sold hardback icy, and just boring, as I said earlier. For someone starting out it looks big and impressive, but until they see a real park, such as out west, they really are bound by their experiences. So in short I am not a fan at all of the RT/LB parks as they do not offer enough variety and are not steep enough to allow for true super kickers and larger features.

As for Wisp, since no one hear knows anything to tell you, It is bigger than the 3 local mtns and gets better snow due to location. The Parks there vary depending on who is building them. I personally loved the parks there when I was working the mtn. because they were huge, way bigger than anything you will find at the above resorts, the last year I worked we were launching off of about a 25 ft. tall kicker, over a table top, and if you didn't hit it balls to the wall you didn't survive well, haha. As for diversity, they usually have many different features, from the generic to the unique, big spines, small spines, 1/4 pipes, rails, boxes, etc. from my experience the park there is hands above Roundtop/libby. The hill gradient at the Wisp is massively more and that lends to being able to build and launch from massive features.

My favorite places to ride though are Timberline and Blue Knob. Both are big vertical MTNS, both have glade and boundary skiing, and Blue Knob especially has the only bowl in the mid atlantic. There is so much more to riding than parks and these two offer the best in the area for that. Plenty of natural features to boost off of.

I do like Blue Mtn. and is good if you can get there when the Jersey invasion is not there (as with most of the pocanos, not much for lodge aestethics but terrain is good). 7 springs is nice if there is a huge dump of pow and everything is covered, and the snow keeps the crowds from being able to get there (the top is flat and hard to get around and the crowds can be insane), Mtns south in Virginia are Tiny and often do not get much snow (wintergreen, massanutten, etc.),
 
13501834:todgrubb said:
the last year I worked we were launching off of about a 25 ft. tall kicker, over a table top, and if you didn't hit it balls to the wall you didn't survive well, haha. As for diversity, they usually have many different features, from the generic to the unique, big spines, small spines, 1/4 pipes, rails, boxes, etc. from my experience the park there is hands above Roundtop/libby. The hill gradient at the Wisp is massively more and that lends to being able to build and launch from massive features.

Most people prefer hitting jumps that are safer as opposed to jumps that you have to hit perfectly or you will die.

Spines are the biggest death traps ever.

Had a quarterpipe for a little this year. They are just hard to put in because they kill flow so it needs to be at the bottom and even then its kind of odd. A big hip would be cool.

It would be nice to get some bigger jumps on Recruit since building anything above 30ft on Fife gets hard to clear. Left side moguls right side jumps on recruit would be sick. We gave Recruit up for Fife because it was too steep.
 
I will probably be visiting Wisp and the WV resorts at least a few times. I think I might pick one of the trio as a place to go frequently though. I want a place I could go to straight from work at like 5 and be able to ski for a little bit.

Blue Knob looks like it would be pretty fucking fun.
 
13507898:ButtahMastah said:
I will probably be visiting Wisp and the WV resorts at least a few times. I think I might pick one of the trio as a place to go frequently though. I want a place I could go to straight from work at like 5 and be able to ski for a little bit.

Blue Knob looks like it would be pretty fucking fun.

yeah blue knob is a shit ton of fun. it has a pretty shitty park but a real nice freesking scene. really intersting mix between the skiing grandparents and the new age kids. if you want i can tell you of some semi-secret spots. but for your sake round top is prolly the best just becuse it has some really fun trails and a pretty good park. and normally its not a clusterfuck like white tail or liberty. but all of them are worth checking out but be warned that whitetail is almost exlusivly gapper land.
 
Roundtop will probably be hiring a bunch of new people for park crew this year if anyone in this thread wants free skiing. Have to work 2 shifts a week for free skiing(includes liberty and whitetail) , but more likely than not you will be skiing for a majority of the shift anyway. I know its kind of a drive from MD, just thought i would toss it out there.
 
13533749:TOAST. said:
Roundtop will probably be hiring a bunch of new people for park crew this year if anyone in this thread wants free skiing. Have to work 2 shifts a week for free skiing(includes liberty and whitetail) , but more likely than not you will be skiing for a majority of the shift anyway. I know its kind of a drive from MD, just thought i would toss it out there.

shift openings on Saturday sam?
 
13548195:jynx81 said:
shift openings on Saturday sam?

Most people don't have a set schedule,but its always flexible. If you have questions youll have to go to the job fair and talk with the park manager/apply.

Also I'm not Sam
 
13548560:TOAST. said:
Most people don't have a set schedule,but its always flexible. If you have questions youll have to go to the job fair and talk with the park manager/apply.

Also I'm not Sam

Shit sorry.
 
seven springs PA is worth the 3 hour trip. one of the best parks on the east coast. it has a full size half pipe and multiple parks. the park staff is awesome they are really good about feature maintenance.
 
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