Did you know? Today is National Caroling Day. Fo’ Real! So I hope you’ll walk around belting out Jingle Bells or your own favorite classic Christmas Carol. I am definitely starting to walk around with a little more holiday spirit. I spent this past Saturday working on Christmas shopping, and it seemed like the rest of the world was right there with me. The parking lots were full. We were in GameStop to purchase a Nintendo DS game for my boyfriend’s niece and hat to wait in line to pay for almost 30 minutes. Apparantly the Saturday before Christmas has been coined SUPER Saturday, and is one of if not THE busiest shopping day of the year, right up there with Black Friday. Something crazy to think about…Super Saturday nets approximately $15 billion in retail sales. Thats a lot of money!! I certainly did my part to help boost the economy this year, and I probably spent more than I should have, but it’s all in good fun and after all, it’s better to give, than to recieve right?
Many of the southeastern ski areas are open on Christmas day, which is awesome for those traveling and spending their holidays on the snow, so we definitely appreciate the hard work of resort staff!
I know lots of you guys and gals have been checking out the newest addition to our website arsenal, HighCountryWeather.com, so thanks to you for doing so. It’s an awesome website focusing on weather at the ski areas we cover everyday. It’s a one stop shop for finding out what’s going on from Wisp to Ober. It’s easy to navigate, it’s easy to read, and it’s accurate. So, before you head to your favorite SkiSoutheast.com ski area, check out HighCountryWeather to see what’s in the forecast!
Another pretty cool tool you can use to check out what’s going on all over and at your favorite resort is to visit HighCountryWebCams. You can check out what’s going on at Sugar Mountain in the same spot you can check out what’s going on at Snowshoe. It’s also an excellent day to see what slope conditions are at many of the areas! We’ve seen some pretty sweet images so far this year. If I’ve got a few spare minutes during my day I definitely will check out a camera or two!!
Enough with the self-promotion…
Tour du North Carolina…
Appalachian Ski Mountain – 16°- Appalachian is OPEN today on all 12 slopes with 5 lifts running. 
With a 55-83 inch base on the mountain, and a killer mountain ops crew, I’d be willing to bet conditions are going to be pretty sweet today. On Christmas Eve Santa will be on the hill from 1-4pm.
This is a shot captured from one of our live HighCountryWebcams at the base of Appalachian Ski Mountain. HighCountryWebcams is great for getting up to the minute live picture updates of what’s happening at area ski resorts!! (More self promotion, I know!) >>>>>
Beech Mountain – 13°- Open today for skiing and riding on 14 of 15 lifts on packed powder conditions! Snowmaking ops are still blasting away adding to Beech’s base and keeping conditions AWESOME!!
Cataloochee – 18.9°- Riding and skiing on 100% of the mountain on 16 out of 16 slopes with three aerial lifts and two conveyor lifts operating on a base of 44-80 inches. Cataloochee WILL be open on Christmas day at 1:00pm and a turkey meal with all the trimmings will be served in the lodge!
Sapphire Valley – 23.4°- They’re 100% open!The website says they are offering a Full Day Lift ticket that runs from 9am-9pm and a Night Lift ticket that runs 5pm-9pm, that leads me to believe they are open from 9am-9pm, but you may want to call ahead just to confirm!
Sugar Mountain – 16°- Open today for shredding, ice skating and tubing. Sugar has a 40-76 inch base on 18 of 20 trails with seven lifts running today. FYI the Terrain Park is now open! We’re just waiting on Boulderdash and Sugar Bear to open and then Sugar will be operating at 100%!!
Wolf Ridge – 24°- Wolf Ridge is open on 15 of 20 trails and they are making snow, adding to an already impressive 80 inch base! The Upper Lodge and "one of a kind" ski through tunnel run, "Nature Trail" is now OPEN! Wolf has done a great job this season with regard to snowmaking and the conditions have got to be incredible! Their morning ski reports closed with this statement, "The slopes are shaped and mounded for incredible rides so be the first to get here today and shred the snow!!"
For more information on ALL of the ski resorts of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic – visit www.SkiSoutheast.com
THINK COLD! THINK SNOW!
We urge you to visit:
www.HighCountryWebCams.com
www.HighCountryWeather.com
www.SkiSoutheast.com
Send your comments, photos, videos and trip reports to: [email protected] or [email protected]