The mid Atlantic region aint dead. If you doubt me go ask Danny Kass, Keir Dillon, Nate Sheehan, Louie Vito, Eddie Wall; all these people grew up in or near the keystone state of Pennsylvania. Western PA is the home of Seven Springs and if you never thought about going there, maybe you should. The riding is fun with a 750 foot vertical drop served by 40 trails over an area of 285 acres. While that is small compared to say Vail, the nooks and crannies of east coast resorts and the people that ride there make trips to the hills fun times. Ten chairs and 5 surface lifts get people up the hill and with a proximity to cities such as Pittsburgh and Washington DC, all the lifts get their share of use. The front slopes are short and fun while the North Face/Giant Steps area has the longer more wide-open slopes with the greatest vertical. On the slopes there are always people drinking and having fun but they take their snow sliding serious in PA. They also take nothing for granted; appreciating every chance to ride, rather it is pow, ice or even raining. The only thing that slows people down is if the Steelers are playing. The resort complex is huge, almost like a mini-Vegas without the gambling. Most of the facilities were recently overhauled. While the natural terrain has not changed to much at Seven Springs, one of the first resorts outside of Vermont, the terrain parks have gotten a serious boost in the past few years. The owner, Robert Nutting who also owns the Pittsburgh Pirates and various publications brought on SPT to manage the terrain parks. SPT is headed up by Chris Gunnarson and a crew does the parks at Northstar, Copper, Snoqualmie, The X Games, US Open and so on. Joel Rerko came out from Keystone to run the park program. Joel has experience at Keystone and even helped with Superpark and the US Open. I asked Joel if he was bummed to go from Keystone Colorado to the Keystone state and he said no, he likes it there. Joel has gone right to work and improved things drastically. They now have 5 parks and 2 pipes. New for 2009 is a top to bottom park on the North Face which required a massive amount re-grading since the North Face is so steep. So you could say they moved mountains to make a new terrain park this year. Heck, for the first day of the 08-09 season they had 11 features up already and had a Rome premature jibulation contest the second day with 160 entrants, holy crap. I told you the kids are passionate about snowboarding there. 

How many kids, since the place opened in the 1930's, came through these gates to start their snow sliding career?

Jeremy Anderson hucks over some debris under the North Face Lift

Matt Guess in the terrain park, photo by Evan Sanders

Think there is never pow on the east coast?

Kevin Kabosa bonks up the pole

OG rider John Krammer in the pipe, photo by Evan Sanders

They brought in Frank Wells to help build the pipe last year. Yea, the same Frank Wells that does the Olympics, X Games and so on. Apparently it worked because Seven Springs got rated by Transworld as having the 5th best pipe in the east. Photo by Evan Sanders

 Chris Lengle steps it up 

Avalanche awaits your tracks. Of course this gets to be a bit bumpy and icy at times - try that on Friday night after some beers and see if you really have board control down

Ryan Sable gets creative on the 3rd day of the season

Ryan Sable - front board

Chuck Lengle - up over nose manny

Ryan Sable carve on the North Face - photo by Joel Rerko

Ryan Sable

Chris Lengle - 180

Jeremy Anderson - Method

The front face slopes (l-r), Goosebumps, Avalanche, Tyrol, Stowe, Wagner www.7springs.com