Conditions Simply Don’t Get Much Better! Go Ski and Ride! (Don’t even read this today!)

First Trax

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We’re only posting highlighted notes that were submitted to us this morning, so for the details, morning temps, etc – for your favorite resort, check the SLOPE CONDITIONS PAGE.

We’ve had such a great stretch of weather that conditions just simply are wonderful. They are so good that several ski areas did not make snow. Grooming’s the key and most all of the resorts have completed their bases by the time I post this. Most mornings I watch several going up and down their hills as I begin compiling data at around 7pm. The snow groomers and snow makers put in some early (and late) hours to get the snow ready for a great day of skiing and snow boarding.

Saturday was a very busy day at most all of the resorts. We watched some big crowds enjoying what was a “Chamber of Commerce”-like day yesterday. There were blue skies, perfect temps in the 20s (some 30s) and near perfect conditions most everywhere. It simply can not get much better and yet today will be almost a clone of a day – so get out and enjoy it!

Here’s Some Resort Highlights –

Cataloochee Ski Area – They made snow and have near perfect conditions for DAY SKIING ONLY on Sundays!

Hawksnest Resort – They are considerably warmer than numerous of the resorts across the region this morning. They are showing 23° this morning. They did not make snow last night, but have for the last three previous nights. They wanted us to make mention of their 2nd Annual Nest Games that will be held March 3rd & 4th. Events will be boardercross, skiercross & freestyle event. Make your plans to be there. Hawksnest looks very nice this morning!

Ski Beech – They had a low temp last night of 14° but are already at 25° as of this posting (8:42am). The high today should be in the 30s with lots of sunshine across their 15 groomed trails.

Sugar Mountain – They reported a low of 11° and are not making snow as of now. They are hosting The High Country Junior Race Series Championships, sponsored by Eurosock, Spyder, Carrera and Uvex is today on Big Red. They had a huge crowd on Saturday as we saw cars parked out on Highway 184 and even across the highway! The word is out about how great conditions are!

Bryce Resort – They are 100% open, but will have the Bootlegger trail closed until noon today for ski racing. They are hosting the USSA Race Junior 4-6 & Masters Races today.

Wintergreen Resort – Its 13° and sunny on Sunday, with snow in the forecast for early in the week as well as COLD temps all week! Sarah Lovejoy wrote, “We are 100% open and the conditions are fantastic. Today we will be skiing and riding on all 25 trails with a machine groomed surface and there will be 6 lifts running. Upper Diamond Hill will be closed during our FREESTYLE boardercross event.”

Snowshoe Mountain – It’s 4° this morning and Sunday should be beautiful (and snow is in the forecast for the next few days!) and Lindsay Kutsko wrote, “Snowshoe is experiencing one of the best trends in continuously perfect skiing and riding conditions in the Southeast due to the combination of natural snowfall and cold temperatures that provide the opportunity for nightly snowmaking out on the trails and daily grooming as well. We made snow last night and all trails were groomed except for Knot Bumper, Choker and Lower Shays. The base out on the mountain is 36" – 40" with groomed packed powder surface conditions. Cascade and Slaymaker will be closed today due to race events. All 14 lifts will be in operating today. This is the time to get to Snowshoe, now offering the latest hot deal, Mission: Mountain Escape, 3 Unique Getaways starting at $53 per person/per night. Check out the hot deals tab at www.snowshoemtn.com for more information.

Videos Almost TOO Popular!

We’ve been so busy this season that we haven’t posted a ton of new videos, but we’ve posted enough AND some new ones of late and so many people are hitting the video page on SkiSoutheast.com in such numbers that it was burning some heavy bandwidth! To alleviate that issue, we moved the best new videos to EACH of the individual ski resort webpage on SkiNC and SkiSoutheast.

For example, if you have never skied and/or visited a specific ski area, you can now check to see if we have posted any new video for that resort by clicking on the resort link of your choice on our front page. The page that opens next will have the latest video that we have for that resort! We’re working on more, but if you don’t see one for YOUR resort pick, then send us your clips and we’ll put it together!

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE NEW VIDEO PAGE…and remember to look at your favorite ski resort page on SkiNC or SkiSoutheast.com for the latest video for that resort!

Webcams Page Fixed…

We had some cams that were not showing that are now! I can’t believe that you guys didn’t tell us about it! Usually we get tons of emails about our errors! Perhaps the reason is that most of you guys go to www.HighCountryWebCams.com anyway! Speaking of HighCountryWebCams.com, we had a guy email us last week that he and some business partners wanted to purchase the website. Being the “savvy” business person that I am, of course I wrote that all things in life are for sale. (Okay maybe not ALL things!) Anyway, the guy wrote us three times, but never revealed his or his partner’s names, which was kind of weird, but he made a “great” offer of $10,000. Of course we enjoyed that bit of humor and moved on to more important things that day!

Phoenix Mountain Ski Resort…no longer in the plans.

We receive one or two emails a week from people asking questions about the Phoenix Mountain Ski Area that made the circles around the newspapers and of course on this website a bit more than a year ago. As crazy as it sounds, we don’t know much more than you guys who are asking about why there hasn’t been anymore talk about it since the land was purchased. Admittedly we stay pretty busy talking about ski resorts that actually exist; however we have placed a couple of calls and dropped a few emails from time to time.

It’s a pretty safe bet that there will be no Phoenix Mountain Ski Area; at least not in North Carolina. Jay Vincent of Vincent Properties in Blowing Rock was involved in the project after the developers purchased the land from Eric Hunter more than a year ago. We have placed calls to Jay Vincent’s office and left messages that were from SkiNC and we’ve received no call backs. We also had some initial conversations with the company that purchased the land and we know that one of their VPs purchased a home between Boone and Banner Elk and we had a couple of early conversations with him about plans for the community. At that time he and other planners said that it was much too early to discuss the project since they were going through the waiting period after plopping down a ton of money as a deposit. While it was too early to get into specifics, our contact did tell us that they were “exploring” the idea of having ski slopes and he even quoted the pre-purchase news that a slope at the Phoenix resort could be the longest in the Southeast.

However, that was all several months ago. We have since placed two additional calls to the Florida main office and left messages for those in the know (from SkiNC.com) and since there have been no return calls, it’s a safe bet that the development plans no longer includes ski slopes.

One of our contacts (who asked not to be identified because he works closely with the company) said that he was told by local real estate investors that the ski area is “no longer in consideration”.

One of the reasons supposedly thrown around was that Ashe County does not have the wealth to surround and support a ski area. They ARE kidding, right? From what we understand the development plans are now for a very nice, upscale, Adirondack-style community with very upscale amenities. Sounds like a nice neighborhood for poor folks right?

If we hear more, we’ll pass it on, but for now, the Phoenix Mountain issue has died on the vine.

Go enjoy your day!

Until Next Time…

THINK COLD AND SNOW!!!

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For more information about the ski resorts of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic visit www.SkiSoutheast.com  

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