I Survived Ski Resorts that Shouldn't Exist

Imagine getting stranded on a broken ski lift and having no way down. Or riding fake snow just to see your board got covered in weird black gunk. Or worst of all, pulling up to a ski resort and nearly getting dragged into a fight before you even touch the snow. These aren't exaggerations, these are real experiences people claim to have had at ski resorts. And over the next few days, I'm visiting every single one of them to see how bad these places really are. Starting with Camp Gah. Camp Gah's got a lot of lore to it. Apparently it's notorious for being one of, if not the smallest ski resort in all of America. A lot of people also don't like it because it's a lot of fake snow. Apparently it makes it really icy and not fun and all sorts of things like that. On top of that, there's really not a lot of difficult runs. But I'm kind of confused because the trail map here has multiple black diamonds and even two double black diamonds. Those are for the experts. I'm not an expert. I'm kind of scared. You can tell by my face. And lastly, the chairlifts here are really slow. We're going to have to find that out. I'm actually, I'm going to go find that out right now actually. I'm going to go on the chairlifts. While riding the ski lift to go to the top of the mountain, I noticed that you can get off halfway through and it would lead to a route that's easier for beginners. I figured it would be best for me to do this one first since if I head up to the top, it sends me straight to black diamonds. So instead of doing that, for now, we're just going to start on these greens. Now along with testing all of the lore that some of these resorts have, I'm going to be testing them on my own rules as well to see if these resorts actually deserve to stay open. So for my list, rule number one, I have to be able to go down the most dangerous, scariest run without getting injured. Rule number two, I have to be able to do a cool trick at each and every one of these resorts. That's always been a dream of mine to be able to do a flip on a snowboard. I have no idea if I'm capable of doing it. And rule number three, I have to be able to get something yummy and delicious. I like my snacks. What can I say? The goal is by the end of all three of these resorts, I'll be able to do a front flip. Who knows? I am currently on the top of all 270 vertical feet of Camp Gallington. I've heard a lot of people complain that you can make it to the bottom of this mountain in 45 seconds. Some people see that as a problem. I see it as a challenge. I think I can make it down to the bottom of this mountain in less than that. Oh, I got to make sure my cool goggles are on now. Yeah. Ha ha. I began riding down the mountain with my cool goggles on, of course, and even though the mountain was pretty small, I was able to go real fast on here. Yeah. Along with that, I was able to make it down the entirety of the run in just 38 seconds, which means this is the first part of the lore that's true. This seems like a really good place to teach your child, which a lot of people are. You wouldn't really want to start a young person on, like, a mountain forest, for example. You can't have the bigger mountains without the smaller mountains. I guess you could, but it'd be hard to get the metaphor I'm trying to use. I'm here during the peak of the season, and we recently just got some snow. With that being said, I haven't seen any of the snow machines going. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. The only thing I'm a little concerned right now is that my chair is, like, making unsettling noises as I go up. Along with the chair squeaking, it was also pretty slow, however, I don't really mind because the lift to get to the top of the mountain really isn't that long. So far while being at this resort, a lot of the lore has actually been true, however, to find out if a place like this should actually exist, I have to start testing it based off of my list, and to do so, I'm going to be attempting the most dangerous run they have here to see if I get hurt. I am about to go down Upper Lenapee. Doesn't sound that scary, does it? Until you find out it's a double black diamond. To say the least, they're pretty darn scary, I mean, I don't really know what to expect right now. Let's just see if we survive this, I guess. There's a chance I don't make it out of here. But I think I'll be alright, though. We'll see. I'm about to conquer Upper Lenapee. Oh, gotta put the cool goggles on first, can't forget that. That wasn't the coolest one. To be honest, the double black diamond was actually really easy, I just thought the dramatic music would be kinda funny. But the run was over in maybe like 8 seconds and put me right in the beginning area I passed on the way up here. The good news is, I did just survive the most dangerous trail here, however, I'm not too sure if I can even call this dangerous, so that also means another part of what people had to say about this place is actually true. I've been down nearly every single run here, didn't really take that long, this place isn't very big. The mountain was actually groomed and felt pretty good to snowboard on. I'm not too sure how to show how good or bad the snow was, so I just drew a smiley face in it to show it wasn't all ice. But now that I've been on literally every run here, I decided it was the best time for me to learn a cool trick. And since they don't have a terrain park here, I was gonna have to do something on the ground. The cool trick I'm gonna do, I don't even know if it's got a name, I don't really know a whole lot about what I'm about to do, to be honest. I think I'm gonna try to do some sort of 360, if that's the plan. See how it goes. 360 time. You know what they say, second time is the charm. That was it! I think I'm done snowboarding for the day, however, we still have to go in and test one final thing and see if it can complete the third rule. There's gotta be something to eat. I'm starving. Let's go see if I can get some yum yum. I'm hungry. I just went to the cafeteria, the person there advised I get the cheeseburger, he said it's the yummiest thing. Oh my goodness, look at it! It seems like Camp Gongton has checked off every single rule of my list. Yeah, there's not a whole lot to do. That's not really what I'm looking for. I'm looking to learn. I'm looking to get better. I'm looking to eventually land this front flip. Anyways, I'm gonna go eat my cheeseburger and then we're gonna head over to the next resort. Hopefully it's a little bit bigger than this one. We'll see. Alrighty, we just made it to our second resort. This is big snow. You may notice that I'm currently not really at a mountain. This is actually on the inside of a mall. Everyone's just walking around here shopping. Kind of feel like a weirdo right now. Can't lie. Starting with the first reason, a lot of people don't like it because it's kind of small. We're inside. You can't have a mountain inside. Maybe you can. Not here though. Another thing is because of that, you can't go very fast. There's not a lot of runs. One of the more concerning things that people have said about this place is that after riding, whether it's their snowboard or skis, they've gotten like weird, black, mysterious substances. Their stuff is what I'm trying to say on the bottom of their equipment. Don't know what it is. Don't know why it's there. We're gonna see if it happens to me. The last thing is about this place, you can only buy a two hour pass supposedly. I don't know. I haven't bought anything yet. We're just gonna head on in and shred the slopes. All right, we just made it into big snow. It's actually freezing in here. You can see my breath. You might not be able to actually. Wait, I think you can. I just checked in. I was only able to get a two hour pass, but truthfully, I really don't mind that. But oh my, look at this. We're inside right now. I'm gonna go get on the lift. This seems like fun. Once I made it to the top, I strapped in and immediately headed down. And honestly, I was really surprised that the snow actually felt like snow. It genuinely felt like I was riding on a normal mountain, which kind of blows my mind because I'm inside right now. However, in just a few seconds, the run was over. I didn't even realize it, but this is like literally the only run to the entire like resort. And that means I just literally did the hardest run here and I didn't even get hurt. Something I did notice while going up on the other side, they also have a terrain park. They got like interesting things. We're going to try them all. Here's a quick tour on everything the terrain park has. Jumps, boxes, bowl, scarier box, pipe. We're going to start on this jump right here. Kind of scared. It looks pretty gnarly. However, what I want to learn by the end of today is a rail. They're really scary. The last thing I want is like to slip out and just like destroy my back. I feel like the likelihood of that happening is, it's pretty high to be honest. I feel like it's only right for me to be able to successfully complete all of the obstacles here, but I'm obviously going to start with the easier ones first. I was coming in hot on this first one and I actually stomped the jump on my very first try. Honestly, I was pretty surprised I didn't land on my face. And right after I hit the box and even the ball without falling even once. Regarding the snow, I got to say it feels like snow. It looks like snow. It tastes like snow. I didn't taste it. That's just an assumption. I did draw a smiley face in it though. However, I don't know if I have any black gunk on the bottom of my board yet. We'll find out about that later, but I'm going to keep practicing the little boxes and the jumps. How am I going to learn a front flip if I can't get out of my comfort zone? Just trying to hit a rail. You know what I'm saying? I took another run with the hopes of being able to hit one of the harder obstacles, specifically the scary box because it somewhat resembles the pipe I plan on attempting. So I feel like it'll be some good practice. I'm not going to lie. I have absolutely zero experience doing this, which means there's a really good chance of me slipping out and falling. Even though I just got a mouthful of snow, I wanted to give it another try before I attempt the last obstacle. And I'm really glad I did because on just my second attempt, I did this. I'm honestly surprised with how much fun this terrain has been so far. According to the lore, lots of people dislike this place because it's super easy since it's not a mountain and it's indoors. But honestly, I just disagree with that. I mean, obviously it's indoors, so that's true. That seems like a benefit though, since you can literally snowboard all year long. But the terrain park has been quite challenging so far, at least for me. A lot of people here said that there was no difficult runs either. The person who said that was Sean White or they just didn't have this terrain park here. There's no in between. I'm afraid that I'm going to break every single vertebrate in my back attempting this rail, but here I am. While preparing myself to attempt this last obstacle, I decided it was best to ask for advice from this guy who looked like he knew what he was doing. He told me two very important things. I have to look at the end of the pipe while riding it, and it's best to go faster than slower. With my new knowledge, I was feeling more confident than ever. There was really nothing that could stop me. The only thing I could think that maybe would is if a kid came flying out of nowhere and took out my ankles, but what are the odds of that happening? You alright? Yeah. Good thing we got helmets on. The only lore of this park and the one I was honestly most concerned about was that my board was going to have black gunk, some mysterious stuff on the bottom of it. There's literally none of that at all. I think whoever said that was just making it up. After testing this, it seems like most of the lore here isn't actually true, and so far it's been able to check off everything off my list, meaning it's looking like this resort does deserve to stay open. However, the next park coming up is supposedly way worse than this one and really should not be allowed to be open, but before we head over there, I still need to find out if I can get food here. What's up guys? It's Dylan. I turned into a half-eaten chicken tender from Popeyes. I'm not, I didn't actually turn into a chicken tender. Surprise. I think it's pretty obvious, but I found food. I've only been snowboarding for a little bit now. It's really taught me to kind of get out of my comfort zone and do things that I might not be physically capable of, but actually am physically capable of because I'm doing them. Does that make sense? I guess what I'm trying to say is like, I'm doing things that I'm scared of doing, but I'm doing them. That's courageous or something like brave. I don't know. So at this next resort, which apparently should really be shut down according to what I read about it. I don't know. Some of the things are really concerning. I will be doing a front flip. That is a promise. Look, pinky promise. That's how you know it's legit. I'm going to eat my Popeyes now and then head over. Alrighty. We just made it to the last and final resort. We're at Mountain Creek. Mountain Creek has quite a bit of a negative lore attached to it. One starting with the fact that it's right by the city. It gets really busy. It's easy to run into people is what I'm trying to say. Another thing people don't like about it is it's really pricey. We're going to have to see if that's, if that's actually true. Lastly, apparently, apparently it's pretty ghetto. People have reported like getting in fights here and getting their boards or skis stolen. That's something I really don't want to happen today. The last thing I want to do is get jumped while trying to snowboard. But anyways, today's the day I'm going to land a front flip. I can feel it. I'm actually, I'm actually really scared to attempt this today. I'm hoping that it's not too icy. I'm hoping that we get some soft landings and I'm hoping I don't break my neck. That's, that's, that's, that's what I'm really hoping for. Anyways, it's about that time. Let's go snowboarding. I made my way onto the mountain, which costed a hundred dollars to get in, which is more than both of the previous mountains combined, meaning it's definitely kind of expensive. However, off my first glance, it kind of seems worth it because this is the first resort that actually has a mountain. While walking to get onto the lift, I noticed the line was looking extremely long, but to be honest, it was moving really quick since instead of having a ski lift, they had a gondola that was able to fit a ton of people. And on top of that, while riding up, I saw that the runs really weren't that busy. So that's the first thing about this place that just isn't true. I just got onto the gondola. There's a lot of people here, so it's kind of awkward. It's pretty cool that I don't have to sit on the chairlift at this resort. I get to stand. It is a little busier, I gotta say. This mountain seems much bigger, so I'm really excited. You can tell by my excited face. This is my excited face. I just got to the top of the gondola. I'm about to take my first run on the mountain. I gotta say, the first thing I noticed was just how awesome it was riding an actual mountain. Compared to everywhere I've been, this is honestly a luxury to me, and I don't really see how people could be complaining about this. I mean, the size of this resort is pretty giant, because with over 1,000 feet of vertical drop, Mountain Creek has 46 different trails you can ride on across four different peaks. For part of the lore that Mountain Creek has, it says that a lot of fights break out and people get their equipment stolen. So far, I haven't been beaten up, so that's always cool. I was able to leave my board. It's actually right behind me right now. I was able to go inside, get a drink of water, use the bathroom, do all that. I came outside. It's still here, so honestly, I'm just going to have to say that's not true. Really nothing more to that. I mean, I can't imagine people would just beat you up. You'd really have to do something bad for that to happen, but I'm alright. Before I attempt my front flip, I still have a lot I want to do at this resort, such as trying out the most difficult run on this mountain. But just to get there, I have to go on an entirely different peak. As I was making my way over there to try to attempt it, I couldn't help but notice that even though the lines at the bottom of the mountain were a little long, there really weren't that many people on the runs. I'm not really too sure where everyone was, but for the people I could find, they were all just passing me on the mountain, which means it isn't actually true that everyone here is inexperienced. That, or I'm the one who's inexperienced, but I'm just going to say it's not true. Legend has it, the hardest trail is at the top of this one, so I'm going to be going down it. Not sure if my friends will join me. They're too scared. You can tell by the way he's scared. Yeah, see? Yeah. If I don't make it down in the next five minutes, guys, you got to call Ski Patrol. Ski Patrol's too scared to go down that one. I got prepared to ride on the most dangerous run they have here, and while looking at the map, I noticed that this one definitely looks more extreme than the other ones. When I actually got there, there was multiple signs warning me about this run, and one of them even said it was only for experts. Honestly, I'm nothing close to an expert, however, the only way for me to complete this list is to actually go down it, so here goes nothing. I'd be lying if I said this was easy, because I spent a good portion of the run laying down due to how steep and icy it was, although I did survive it with absolutely no injuries, so we could check that off the list. Now that all the lore here has been investigated, I was feeling ready to go over to where the terrain park is to see if I could find a good spot to attempt a front flip. While heading over there, the only thing that was going through my mind was how scared I was to actually try this. I mean, in all honesty, I don't think I'm capable of landing this, and the last thing I want to do is get hurt, but I've made a promise, I'm going to attempt this. I've scoped out some of the jumps here. None of them look ideal for flips. They all look like they're built for Sean White. What I'm saying is they're big. Yeah, like that. They look like that. I want a jump that's like small and light. I think a lot of this is honestly though the fear talking, but you know what they say. I was trying to think of like a saying about courage or like bravery, couldn't really think of anything. Where you keep scoping out jumps though, we're going to find the one. I looked around while riding this peak of the mountain for quite a bit, but there were more so just a lot of obstacles like rails, boxes, and tubes. There were some jumps that were fun to do, although none of them were really built for flips. I don't really have many words to say right now. I'm kind of just feeling like a failure. There is another peak on the mountain that might have some jumps. I think, yeah, fingers crossed. I can't really cross my fingers. Yeah, fingers crossed that we find a spot. I really don't know what to say. I think it's pretty clear that at this exact moment, I was feeling pretty upset with myself. However, I hadn't given up. Honestly, I think I just needed to find something to eat, which conveniently when I got to the bottom of the mountain, I found they had a waffle stand here and they looked absolutely delicious. We just got a snack here at the mountain. This is a Belgian waffle covered in chocolate syrup. Honestly, probably the best thing I've ever tasted in my life, ever. I'm thinking this is like the fuel I need to be able to send a front flip today. I'm eating this waffle. I'm feeling much more confident, still horrified, don't get me wrong. I'm feeling more ready than ever. I'm going to finish this delicious waffle and then I don't even got to say anything. You already know what's going to happen. This is it. I think I actually found the spot I'm going to do my front flip at. It's now or never. I'm not going to lie. To say the least, I am horrified right now, but yeah, I got nothing else. I'm really scared. I'm just going to go for it. I'm not going to think. Here goes nothing. Come on, Dylan. You okay? I don't know if you're okay or not.