A Day for Ducks and The Young at Heart at the Ski Resorts!

First Trax

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Check out our full SNOW REPORT for all the deets for each and every ski area in the region.

Saturday was a wet one for most all of the ski mountains. The rains kind of held off until mid-day and that allowed for some good turns on soft snow at your favorite ski resort. I headed over to the lake to do some quick upkeep on my boats and as I drove past the entrance to Sugar Mountain, this is what I saw…

Sugar Mountain was pretty much in a cloud all day.

Nothing…

However, at least it wasn’t raining until later in the day. I actually took a quick side-trip on my way back from the lake to do a quick hike to Elk Falls. It began to rain at about 2pm or so and then it seems that every ski mountain got in on the act.

By the way, for those of you who have never hiked back to Elk Falls, in Elk Park, North Carolina – it’s worth a quick walk. Here’s a quick GoPro capture.

Base Depths Took a Hit Across the Region
The heaviest rains were here in the High Country areas of Beech, Sugar, Wolf Laurel, Blowing Rock, etc. where about 2″ of rain fell. Here are the accurate tallies:

2.45″ – Cataloochee Ski Area
2.00″ – Appalachian Ski Mountain
1.68″ – Winterplace Resort, WV
1.45″ – Seven Devils, NC
1.43″ – Sugar Mountain, NC
1.19″ – Sapphire Valley, NC (They are closed Sunday due to the weather.)
1.00″ – Banner Elk, NC
0.92″ – Beech Mountain, NC
0.89″ – Ober Gatlinburg, TN
0.71″ – Wintergreen Resort, VA
0.69″ – Massanutten Resort
0.69″ – Snowshoe Mountain, WV
0.34″ – Canaan Valley and Timberline Resort
0.15″ – Wisp Resort, Maryland

Interesting side-bar – even though Canaan Valley and Timberline have hogged up the most natural snowfall on the season with 96.2″ on the season compared to 80″ at Snowshoe which normally “leads the league” in snowfall. However, when it comes to under-developed snow (rain), they only saw 0.34″ on Saturday.

Another 1″ of rain is in the forecast for today for all ski resort mountains.
Dealing with the Rain…
On Saturday morning I remarked about Cataloochee’s Tammy Brown and her sense of humor with posting that they ski and ride in the rain at the Maggie Valley, NC ski area. This morning she topped that comment by posting:

NO NIGHT SKIING TONIGHT!
Yes, we ski and tube in the rain, but this stuff has gotten messy, that’s for sure and we have some potential for thunder and lightening in the forecast for later this afternoon. With that said, and with more of this storm coming through this afternoon, we will day ski only today until 4:30pm and we will not night ski tonight. NASTAR Public Racing is cancelled for this afternoon.

She also emailed:

Yes, we do ski in the rain but do not when we feel there could be the potential for other elements out there, or when we have thunder or lightening. We have cancelled NASTAR public racing today.

…and now about those base depths…
Beech Mountain – dropped 2″ – same slope offerings 16 of 17. But things are already looking rather “worn” and watered down. They had a groomed running this morning at 8am but they hadn’t covered much. Not sure if they had more than one out and about.

Canaan Valley – dropped 2″ in base, despite less than a half inch of rain. They also dropped 16 trails that were open on Saturday and now offer 27 of 47 trails for day sessions today.

(Joe Stevens emailed me a bit of a clarification that we felt good to share. Those 16 trails that were dropped were all natural snow trails…meaning they are only open when there’s enough natural snow on them.)

Cataloochee Ski Area is reporting a 6″ drop in base but still 40-70″. They are open with 17 of 18 trails for day sessions only due to the weather.

Massanutten Resort – dropped their base 2″ to 38″ and they will play on 13 of 14 trails for today as well as 12 lanes on their great snow tubing park.

Great videos from Massanutten today. The first one is an awesome video of an adaptive monoskier.

Here’s their 2018 Polar Plunge into 45 degree waters on Saturday.

Ober Gatlinburg – reported a 7″ drop in base to 25-30″ and they are 100% open. I liked this clear reporting:

Good morning– This rainstorm seems to be passing and then popping back up in the afternoon, but thankfully the percentages actually drop in the afternoon. Due to the amount of rain we have received, the number of open slopes may change, so please check back for updates. Until then– slopes are 100% open today on an average base of 25-30 inches. All slopes are machine groomed excluding Mogul Ridge.

SNOWSHOE MOUNTAIN – They are still offering all 60 trails open for today despite dropping 4″ of their base now showing 40″. The NWS station there is reporting 0.69″ of rain.

Sugar Mountain – dropped 5″ of base and are now reporting 42-90″. Still open with 21 trails. They saw 1.43″ of rain.

Omni Homestead dropped 4″ to 32″ of base and they still show all 9 trails open.

Timberline Resort dropped their max base by 12″ down to 28-72″. They remain open with 30 of 40 trails open for day sessions.

Wintergreen Resort – They saw 0.71″ of rain and dropped 4″ of base to 42″ and they are 100% open with all 25 trails.

Winterplace Resort – they are the only ski resort not to drop their base after 1.68″ of rain in the last 30 hours. They are still reporting 30-54″ of base and all 27 trails open.

Wisp Resort – interesting things ARE wet up there, however none of the reporting stations are showing more than 0.15″ of rainfall in the last 30 hours. Crazy huh? Anyway they are open for day sessions with 28 of 34 trails.

Wolf Ridge Resort – 1.02″ of rain and 100% open with all 15 trails.

 

If you have anything to share (photos, videos, comments, questions), the best way is to email me at [email protected]

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Also, be sure to check out all of the LIVE CAMS at www.ResortCams.com and our weather content

https://www.skisoutheast.com/category/news/weather/ – Brad’s Skier’s Forecast

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