Hello Everyone –
In case you haven’t noticed, the southeast region remains in great shape as the season moves into overdrive during the rest of January, February and March. The point here is if you haven’t been on the slopes yet, make plans to do it now.
As they say, "pick your poison" and just say “let’s go” and while you are at it, take a friend or two. I just wish I would win the lottery and hit the slopes whenever I wanted – hey we can always dream.
For some unknown reason I believe the questions are going to start coming now that a number of resorts in the region have experienced their first real thaw of the decade. Those questions are going to center around if there is still plenty of snow on the slopes. Hello, have you not been reading the interesting numbers Mike Doble has been putting in front of you on this website.
As it has been reported there is probably enough snow of the slopes to start another ice age. Just get out there!
And about those thaws, believe me when I say the mountain operation folks in the region plan for these types of weather occurrences. You see when making snow on a trail, snowmakers take into consideration how much snow the trail gets and if it gets plenty of direct sunlight, more snow is made on that trail to handle a thaw cycle. Again you have to give a hand to the snowmakers throughout the region to look past single digit temperatures and worry about days and weeks ahead when temperatures aren’t the best for snowmaking purposes.
Finally let’s talk again about the Learn A Snow Sport Month program that continues throughout the southeast and across the country. I mentioned earlier about taking a friend with you on a ski trip, why not make that friend a first timer and get someone new into the sport. This is how the industry is going to grow and how prices are going to be able to be maintained not increased. At least we hope that would be the case. As a skier or snowboarder you really don’t have any control over that matter.
That’s it for this week, just remember whether it be cold or whether it be hot, we’ll weather the weather, whatever the weather will be. Think about it! See you on the slopes.
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Joe Stevens, a member of the southeast ski industry since 1990 is a regular columnist for skisoutheast.com and serves as the Communications Director for the West Virginia Ski Areas
Association.