Crystal seems about as far away from King of Prussia shopping as you can get, certainly much more than the reality of 165 miles. Joe and Dottie Alford officially arrived here in 1957, eight years after Joe's father had started the place as a summer camp. It wasn't until 1972 that the Alfords got to know John Manifold, a cross-country skier and a camper there. He just had a wonderful grasp of the whole thing, and how to lay it out. Word traveled, but not through any sustained advertising campaign.
Advertising is too expensive.
And if you get a bad winter, you've just wasted it. A half-hour after we'd started, we gathered at the end of South Ridge trail long enough to share a few laughs and collectively decide that, whatever this was all about, it sure was fun, even if you did have to work at it. Then we looped back to where we'd started, and headed east on Pitch Pine as far as it went, before turning back once again toward the middle of the hill. Below us lay what was once Crystal's modest downhill slope, now used exclusively for snow tubing. After an hour or so exploring trails atop the hill, we chose Bear Creek Trail for the long descent back to the lodge.