 if you count Ober Gatlinburg’s Tubing Park!){kind=link}
Today’s news will tell you WHICH resorts are open and more…and you can also check out our snow reports daily at: https://www.skisoutheast.com/snow-reports/
BEFORE I GET GOING THIS MORNING I want to ask those of you who are reading this right now to do me a HUGE FAVOR. I want to try a little experiment just for my own insight. Before you get to reading all the news that IS news around the region – do me a favor and stop and hop over to your email or phone (text) and contact one or two of your friends that you know who ALSO like “all things snow” and tell them about www.SkiSoutheast.com and www.ResortCams.com.
Ask them to check us out just once and we’ll see if we can get our hooks in them 😉
We’re seeing greater numbers of you guys coming to the site than ever before and with our network of ski content, the webcams and (17) weather websites that cover the ski areas across the Southeast and mid Atlantic – we saw more than five million visitors in the last year and I want to see if we can perhaps DOUBLE those numbers this year.
Word of mouth is STILL the best form of advertising and everyone loves snow, right? If you enjoy checking out our website and all of the webcams – maybe a few of your friends would as well. If you’ll just email or text them to check out ResortCams.com and SkiSoutheast.com, that would be much appreciated.
I have a theory that I want to put to a test. (I’ll let you guys know the results in a couple of days…and thanks again in advance.)
NOW ON TO THE NEWS…
There are temperature inversions out there…. You’ll notice on the snow report that we are showing SNOWMAKING as “YES” but that is because many ski resorts made snow OVERNIGHT and within the last 24 hours. However snowmaking will be off on Saturday at least during open sessions.
Let’s begin our tour…
Appalachian Ski Mountain – 36° – 9 trails and 2 full terrain parks on a 28-58″ base. No snowmaking today and peak season conditions!
I’m starting my small “tour” of resorts this morning with Appy because we will have TWO of our team at the Blowing Rock ski resort most all day today. Kenny Griffin will be there early and all day riding for a bit and then covering App’s Opening Weekend “Weekend Jam” that begins at 2pm. Once the competition begins Kenny will be joined by Jordan Nelson (picture at left) who is our newest member of our contributing team. Jordan is known around the region as the premier aerial drone pilot and he’s flying his massive drone camera and filming the event. Kenny will also be flying our Phantom Vision 2+ drone – so we should have some pretty amazing photos and videos to share with you guys on Sunday and Monday.
Drones are popping up everywhere with DJI boasting that they’ve now sold over ONE MILLION of these things nationwide. Regardless, SkiSoutheast.com will be the FIRST to cover a LIVE event in the Southeast and mid Atlantic which SHOULD provide us all with some “X Game looking” coverage. Can’t wait….
For a little TASTE of what we’ll be showing you Sunday/Monday, check out this cool video that Jordan posted for us!
We’re skipping around this morning as I’m bored… (not really, I just needed an excuse for mixing it up)
Bryce Resort – 18° this morning and they are OPENING for the first time this season – TODAY for day sessions. Their snow report is a little incomplete – but we’re thinking that they are open for DAY SESSIONS only on 4 slopes with Redeye and Bootlegger being the main two. Check out the LIVE CAM at http://www.resortcams.com/webcams/bryce-resort/
Ober Gatlinburg – Ober opens it’s TUBING HILL today for the first time this season and skiing and snowboarding ops will open soon. However their snowreport is reporting that it is 71° but they are showing tons of snow on the tubing park. First they can make snow at 71° on the tubing hill…but it’s really 32° there this morning.
John Cossaboom is a regular reader of our morning reports (he’s also an Ober staff member) and he’ll be correcting this shortly as he helps to keep us straight as well!
Massanutten Resort – 33° this morning and they have their tubing hill open for Saturday, 11/22 and Sunday, 11/23 and hope to have the Ski Slopes open on Friday, 11/28. You can check out the tubing cam at http://www.resortcams.com/webcams/massanutten/
Wisp Resort – If I was titling today’s FirsTrax post based ONLY on Wisp Resort’s Webcams these days it would be:
“Aw Jeez… 18 web cams…But you STILL don’t get the picture.”
It is 30° and they say they’re making snow, but other than (18) static captures of images that they are calling webcams, you wouldn’t know it. Not sure what’s happened up there in Garrett County, but Wisp was on the leading edge of all things technology when it comes to the ski and snowboarding industry, and now – not so much. They led the Southeast and mid Atlantic with web cams when most resorts had none. Now every resort in the region is showing LIVE streaming cams that show a real experience of what you’ll see when you get to the mountain and Wisp is showing these.
http://wispresort.com/wisp-web-cams.php
Here’s a look at a “LIVE CAM” from this morning...hmmm.
Also if you’ve followed their website over the years, they’d always had one of the best and one of the most “fever-creating” sites that always had me wanting to be there. Now they have something that looks like they pulled it out of a closet of one they had back when the WWW began (as we now know it) in the mid 90s.
Oh well. If you’ve been to McHenry, Maryland you know what a special, awesome place and awesome looking mountain that place is. However you wouldn’t know it from their website or those webcams. A real marketing faux pas in my book. I’m not sure who was doing their design work over the last few years, but they were pretty darn good and we’re thinking now that some friend-of-a-friend…or boyfriend has to be doing it these days.
(Brad, did I get ‘edgy’ enough on Wisp? You know who you are…and thanks for the comments yesterday!)
Beech Mountain Resort – 36° – Beech Mountain Resort will open on Friday, November 28, 2014. The resort will operate from 9am-5pm.
WANT TO SEE SOME AWESOME WEBCAMS OF BEECH? Click on your choice:
http://www.resortcams.com/webcams/beech-base-cam/
http://www.resortcams.com/webcams/beech-slopeside/ (my fav…)
Cataloochee Ski Area – 37.9° – They look great this morning with a 22-46″ and 10 trails open today for DAY SESSIONS only.
We do want to help Cat put the word out that they are hosting the second annual Ski & Snowboard Swap Shop Sale to benefit their ski patrol. Check it out at: https://www.skisoutheast.com/event/cataloochee-ski-snowboard-swap-shop-sale/
Sugar Mountain – “Inversions R Them” – If you want to witness a temperature inversion within one mile…all you need to do is check out Sugar Mountain Resort this morning!They are reporting 29.2° at their base as of 8am and 38.7° at the summit!
Sugar is playing all day and night on 9 slopes serviced by 3 lifts on a base of 21-48″, Gunther’s Way is open. (See trailmap to the right.)
Snowshoe Mountain – 33° – Opens Nov 26th – Since I have mentioned resorts and webcams throughout this blog post this morning, it should be noted that Frank DeBerry, David Dekema and they’re management team have done an awesome job of showing off the mountain via webcams. My brother from another mother, Bill Rock (Snowshoe’s previous President and COO) didn’t believe in webcams and I kept trying to convince him of their value. Snowshoe definately gets the value of LIVE streams as they now have the most and best cams of any resort in the region. They’ve added cams back at The Boathouse and across Shaver’s Lake which shows some awesome views.
Check them out at: http://www.snowshoemtn.com/live-cams.aspx
Cannaan Valley – Opening on November 29th
Timberline Resort – Opening on December 12th
Winterplace Resort – Opening December 12th
Wintergreen Resort – opens November 29th
Wolf Ridge Resort – no news
Email me your thoughts and reactions at: [email protected]
If you didn’t do it earlier, go email or text your friends to check us out and thanks again!