We’ve been pouring through emails and will post some new photos a bit later in the morning. The BIG news is the temperatures! Most areas DID pick up anywhere from 1-4” of snow Thursday night and into the early hours of Friday morning. Most of the snow came and went from 6pm-8pm last night.
Snowshoe reports 4”
Canaan Valley – 4”
Massanutten – TRACE
WISP Resort – 3-4”
Appalachian – 2”
Cataloochee – 2”
Hawksnest – 2-3”
Ski Beech – 3”
Sugar … of course reported 2-4” (Let’s make it the same as Beech with 3” as we called the police department and they are reporting 2-3”)
Note: For any thin-skinned FELLOW Sugar lovers out there, notice we said FELLOW Sugar lovers because WE like Sugar too! We’re just reporting the facts. We all know Gunther’s a snow lover and he gets a bit overzealous with natural snow measuring!
The snow was a welcome sight as this IS the first big weekend prior to the Holidays and snow excites the masses. More importantly the dry air and bitter cold temps are allowing the ski resorts to blast the slopes with sustained HOURS of snowmaking, which is building base depths in very fast fashion!
The temperatures were outrageous last night and this morning. Here’s what we have from reporting stations:
Massanutten – 10°
Wintergreen – 18°
Appalachian – 4°
Cataloochee – 9°
Hawksnest – 4°
Sugar Mountain – 4°
Ski Beech – minus 1°
At 8:37am this morning Beech is reporting minus 1° with a wind chill of minus 32°!
The winds were brisk all night to say the least, but not quite as gusty as some were forecasting. Nevertheless we will see 10-15 mph winds today and with highs holding in the teens and low 20s, you should dress accordingly. Layers, layers and more layers. Face masks are a must. Cover all exposed skin!
The other BIG NEWS today is MORE terrain open…in the form of Hawksnest Ski Resort! Congrats to them on opening today for the season. They will have 12-24” of base, three trails operating and they will also offer snow tubing today! Hawksnest will be open from 12:30pm til midnight!
So everyone in North Carolina is open today except for Sapphire Valley and Wolf Ridge Resort. Sapphire is reportedly opening on Saturday for Tubing and Wolf is looking at opening for the season sometime next week.
CANAAN VALLEY – Marketing Director Bryan Brown told me this morning that they had 4” of new snow and they are opening today for the season. They haven’t updated their website and no other reporting service is saying it…but THEY WILL BE OPEN today with three slopes and one lift. Canaan has a lot of media fun happening this weekend and our buddy, Joe Stevens will be there and we’ll be hearing more from them later today.
SNOWSHOE MOUNTAIN – Andrea Smith reported in this morning, “We have four inches of fresh powder atop Snowshoe Mountain, making for the first great powder day of the season! Eleven trails will be open today including Gandy Dancer and Powderidge. On Saturday you can count on Logslide, Greenway and Singletree to be added to the trail count, making for plenty of room to try out the latest gear. Friday, Saturday and Sunday the Skidder, Powder Monkey, Ballhooter and Powderridge lifts will be running from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. All open trails are groomed. The Spruce Glades terrain park is open with seven features.”
MASSANUTTEN RESORT – Also is opening TODAY for the season! As stated above they picked up a trace of snow and with tons of snowmaking pulled the trigger to start the season today. They will be open with 4 trails today for day skiing only. Tubing opens on Saturday there!
If you’ve been thinking of making an early season ski trip up…this will be a great weekend. After bitter cold today…the weekend will mild up to more normal highs and lows and sunny skies! Highs are expected to be in the 40s Saturday and Sunday with overnight lows in the PERFECT SNOWMAKING RANGE of 14-15°!
WINTERGREEN RESORT Slopes will OPEN SATURDAY MORNING for day sessions only. Snowmaking production overnight could best be described as awesome! The combination of single digit temps and one of the best snowmaking systems in the country allowed us to make an enormous amount of snow. We plan on night skiing and riding to begin next week, on Friday, December 15th. We are right on track with our snowmaking plan concentrating on having Upper Dobie, Lower Dobie, Eagles Swoop, Lower Cross Trail and Potato Patch open for the weekend. We will be using the rest of our capacity to run some guns on the Highlands, the Terrain Park and in the Plunge.
TIMBERLINE RESORT picked up 4” of snow and at times had white out conditions during the peak of the storm! They are opening for the season on Saturday!
WINTERPLACE RESORT is opening on Saturday.
WISP RESORT in Maryland decided to open today for the season! They received 3-4” of new snow and will be open with 4 trails. We’ll get you more asap.
OBER GATLINBURG – OPEN’S today at NOON! They picked up some new snow and it is great to see them open as well!
So as you can see…there’s a lot of new terrain and reports to play on beginning today.
Dress warm and see you on the slopes!
Until Next Time…
THINK COLD – THINK SNOW!
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