Guys and gals I promise to rub it in more later when I get home, but I just did first tracks with Bill Rock (President of Snowshoe), Ed Galford and a hand full of media that "braved" the windy conditions up top. The ones who did not make it out REALLY MISSED what was probably the best powder I have ever skied from top to bottom at Snowshoe Mountain! Last March on the last day of the SkiSoutheast.com Summit we had about a foot of heavy snow that was awesome, but eight inches of snow fell overnight and there was CONSERVATIVELY a foot of snow in some locations. A consistent eight inches of "west-like" POW POW was waiting on the four or five of us that did first tracks before Snowshoe dropped the ropes for everyone else. We were supposed to be skiing or snowboarding to the bottom and have breakfast but instead we chose to do some laps on several trails including Gandy Dancer, Ball Hooter, Grab Hammer and others. All I can say is that is was B-O-M-B-E-R!!!! A huge THANK YOU to the ski patrol who hit the trails with us and "WOW" goes out to Bill Rock, Ed Galford, Laura Parquette and the gang at Snowshoe for making that happen.
It may be "Pearl Harbor Day" today but it is BOMBING SNOW instead! This WILL go down as a day in infamy…at Snowshoe Mountain and probably others of the West Virginia Ski Areas.
It was (as some of our messageboard crew says) PUKING SNOW out and the 10 degree temps, accompanied by brisk winds, made taking photos out of the question! Howev er, I can assure you that this morning’s treks down Snowshoe will not leave my memory for a long time to come.
I rode the chair a couple of times with Bill Rock and Ed Galford and both said, "Mike, it does this about everytime you come doesn’t it? We need to get you up here every weekend!"
It sure seems that way! I’ll be back for a week over the Christmas / New Year’s break and all I can say is that I hope that conditions will be ANYTHING CLOSELY related to this!
By the way, the forecasters (many of whom were at this media event) missed this forecast as the NWS and others were forec asting a dusting and no accummulations. They changed that a little last night and said maybe 2-4" would fall. WRONG (but we’re glad)!!! Eight inches of snow has fallen as of 7am and heavy (I mean HEAVY) snow is falling as of 9am! I’ll update you later as to what kind of final totals fall.
If you are up this way for Monday and this week…it will be awesome. (I’m jealous of those of you who will be here!
Thanks also to Doc Brigham as I really think that he might be "up there" convincing snow to fall in larger numbers than in recent history. All the talk right now is that this is resembling a few years back when Snowshoe had 310" one season. We can hope!!!
Later…
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