UNION DALE, Pa. — Martin Luther King Jr. weekend is usually the first holiday of the year; many people have long weekends to travel to ski, including Amanda Ludack of New York.
"I figured people would be staying away, which is another reason why we thought, 'Let's just go away and maybe it'll be less crowded,' but not so much. It's actually more crowded than I anticipated," said Ludack.
Elk Mountain Ski Resort was busy all weekend. Despite not having big groups, one of the changes for this year to keep crowds smaller.
The numbers of people inside the lodge in Susquehanna County also have to be kept to a minimum to ensure social distancing, so the resort asked people to eat outside or bring their own food and tailgate.
"It can get crowded in the lodge, and they don't want you just kind of sitting around in there. They're trying to, you know, move people through the table, so that's why we like to tailgate," said Kara Puco of New Jersey.
"Maybe the main problem is like going inside the lodge and maybe having lunch, maybe that might be like more of a problem, but like skiing in general, that's not that bad," said Ernesto Costa of Brooklyn, NY.
There are a lot of people who traditionally come out for the holiday weekend to hit the slopes, but Elk Mountain officials say there's a lot of first-timers as well.
"You can see that in the ski school, and actually in our rental line, because people who are first-timers don't generally have equipment, so we've actually experienced some backlogs there just because that process takes some time," said Elk Mountain's marketing director Bob DeLuca.
The cold weather has helped the snow. Almost all the trails are open for skiers of all levels. Skiers and snowboarders say the snow conditions are great. Snow crews hope the temperatures drop a little more so they can make more snow.
For more information on conditions and events at Elk Mountain, you can check out their website.