I’m at it a little late on this gorgeous Sunday morning. Now that I’m at my trusty SkiSoutheast.com laptop, the first thing that I did was logon to the CocoRaHS state view and first searched North Carolina communities and found that areas over in the Piedmont picked up another 1-3" of snow on Saturday. The most I could find at the ski areas was Beech Mountain with .8" (8/10ths of an inch) of new snow on Saturday. Blowing Rock reported another one-half inch, and Cataloochee and Wolf were right there as well. Of course that is after 8" of snow fell at Appalachian, Cataloochee – and 7" at Sugar and Beech Friday into Saturday.
I searched the West Virginia communities and found that Snowshoe Mountain is reporting another 7" of new snow after reporting an inch on Saturday morning. Snowshoe has now seen a foot of new snow in the last four days!
Davis, West Virginia (home to both Canaan Valley and Timberline ski resorts) picked up 5.8" of new snow in the last 24 hours. After I reported on the 10-14" of snow being forecasted by Brad Panovich on Wednesday, my buddy Joe Stevens called to ask, "Buddy where are you seeing all this snow?" I told him that the WV resorts would be getting wrap around and northwest flow snows and he responded favorably, yet doubtful. Fast forward to this morning and here we are and Davis indeed picked up 11.1" of new snow since Wednesday and Snowshoe has received more than a foot in the last four days.
Incredibly Davis and the other West Virginia ski communities have now seen 68.7" of snow IN JANUARY ALONE. That’s even with a nearly two and half week "thaw". That is more than FIVE AND A HALF FEET OF SNOW – in J-A-N-U-A-R-Y!
I searched the CocoRaHS reports for Virginia and it was cool to see Wintergreen Resort, Massanutten and The Homestead all reported 8-10" of new snow!
Since we’re "logging snow" I might as well report that it has been extraordinarily snowy in the North Carolina mountains as well this month. Blowing Rock, home to Appalachian Ski Mountain has seen 19" of snow in January and that is after the huge snows that dumped back in mid December. Beech Mountain has picked up 28" of snow in January alone and is now at 60" on the season.
Sunday looks to be an awesome day with sunny skies and temps in the 20s. So you guys should not be reading – you should be riding. Let’s get to the tour and some final notes and get you guys out where you belong – on the snow!
Wisp has 30 of 32 trails open for day sessions only on Sundays. They are reporting 5" of new snow in the last 24 hours and 6" since Friday morning. That is 51" since January 1st and 97.2" on the season.
Snowshoe Mountain – 7" of snow fell in the last 24 hours and 10" since Friday morning! Snowshoe now has 117" on the season. They are 100% open and Laura Parquette sums up today’s news best, "Another 7" of snow fell throughout the day yesterday, and we’re now approaching the 120" mark for the season. Today you’re going to be able to enjoy that snow under sunny skies. So be sure to grab those sunglasses or goggles before you hit the slopes, and don’t forget some sun block, especially on the little ones. While we’re enjoying Colorado-like conditions today, there’s more good news, as the forecast looks great for all of next week, with cold overnight temperatures that will allow us to make tons of snow. We are utilizing our powerful snowmaking system today on the entire length of Shay’s Revenge, so use caution. Today is also WV SKI FREE DAY! We’re welcoming all residents of WV to enjoy Snowshoe for Free today. If you weren’t sure if you wanted to come up and take advantage of this offer, get in your car and get up here! It’s going to be a gorgeous day, and you can’t ask for a better price than FREE."
Canaan Valley – Minus 2° this morning and 5.8" of new snow and 8" in the last two days (11" since Wednesday and 68.7" since January 1st! They are open with 30 of 39 trails for DAY SESSIONS ONLY on Sundays.
Timberline – 33 of 37 trails open for day sessions only on Sundays. Timberline saw another 5.8" of snow in the last 24 hours and ditton Canaan’s snowfall totals on the season. Kim Falls wrote that they also have about 50% of the back country terrain open for cross country skiing with 3-18" of snow!
Winterplace is 100% open and they write, "10 inches of new snow in last 48 hours! Some clouds this morning with clearing skies! Aweosme skiing, riding and tubing!" Tubing is open as well so Sunday will be one awesome day on the slopes!
Massanutten – 100% open – Happy to report that they picked up 7" of snow from the wrap-around snows! Tubing is open as well.
Wintergreen – 100% open – 8" of snow and 10" in last 48 hours! Tubing open as well!
Bryce – 100% open – 3" of snow in last two days – Tubing is open.
The Homestead – 100% for day sessions and tubing is open as well. The Homestead has seen 7" of new snow as well.
Ober Gatlinburg – 100% open and 2" of new snow. They saw 3" from the storm total and now have seen two feet of snow on the season.
Appalachian – 100% open – 8.5" of snow in last two days
Beech – 100% open – 7.8" of snow although they still are showing no snow on their website report. They’re probably have technical difficulties as well. They’re having a sloepstyle boardercross today and if you get a chance go watch as Lisa Herring (one of our staffers) is supposedly going to compete (her first ever). That should be cool to see and she can motor on a snowboard.
Cataloochee – 100% open for day sessions only on Sunday – 8.5" of snow
Wolf Ridge – 17 of 20 trails will be open – 6" of snow
Sapphire Valley – 100% open – 7" of snow – Open til 6pm Sunday.
TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES FIXED! (We hope so!)
Saturday was a tough day for us as we began experiencing issues handling all of the traffic from the ski sites and the webcams pages (especially since we featured the Polar Plunge live cam). We knew we had plenty of server resources with the implementation of a brand new, Wizard of Oz powerful system. However, the man behind the curtain didn’t have all of the knobs turned quite right and unfortunately not all of our visitors got to see what we intended for them to see – our websites!
Anyway, it LOOKS like traffic is bombing us this morning with the sun shining and you guys wanting to see all the snow with the blue skies, and we’re handling the load well. So I’ll take a deep bit of air in my lungs and relax for today.
We’re on day 64 and there are 73 more days of opportunities to enjoy the snow for the 2009-2010 ski and snowboarding season!
That’s it for today. Go enjoy the snow! Check out the Snow Report at https://www.skisoutheast.com/skireports.php and please send us your favorite ski photos, ski videos, trip reports and comments to [email protected]
SSAA: 3 for 64/several/self 62/64