Today is your last chance to get in runs for 2013 as the end of the year is upon us. The weather has cooperated, for the most part, and the skiing and riding is great. The resorts have a bunch of terrain open and thanks to the cold temps in the past 24 hours they have fresh snow (natural or manmade). The temps this morning are an average 10 degrees lower than when I updated the ski reports yesterday morning. The weather is skier friendly today with generally partly cloudy skies and highs in the low 30s at Snowshoe, WV to the mid-40s at Cataloochee, NC. Definitely a good day to finish the year off with.
If you have not decided on what to do to ring in the New Year yet, be sure to check out our events for the happenings at the resorts. Chances are your local mountain is throwing a party tonight!
Updating the snow reports this morning largely just required updating the morning temps, but most of our member resorts made snow last night and a few added to their already quit substantial bases.
Cataloochee all lite up last night for snow making
In the North Caroline High Country, both Appalachian and Beech added 2+” inches, while Sugar Mountain added about 1”. Our neighbor to the west, Ober Gatlinburg also added 2” of manmade and has a 20-22” base.
Snowshoe opened up more terrain and is now skiing on 176 acres thanks to the addition of the blue J-Hook off of the Soaring Eagle Express at the far end of the mountain. Winterplace added about 4” to the low end of their base bringing it up to 24-40”. Our final West Virginia mover is Timberline who also added one run and is reporting about half an inch of natural.
Is that a rainbow starting to develop at Snowshoe?
Check out the 24 hour time-lapse at Snowshoe. A rather foggy (and busy) yesterday fades to snowmaking last night to finally what looks to be a blue bird day shaping up.
Back down here in North Carolina, looks like Sugar Mountain is seeing quit a temperature inversion as they are reporting a base temperature of 21.9 and a summit temp of 40.4. Crazy, huh? Not sure how accurate that is however because they are making snow on top right now (well, the top of Big Red anyway).
Making snow at the top of Big Red at Sugar
Before I take off, I updated our calendar of events this morning. Massanutten is having their first Thursday Night Throwdown (TNT) Rail Jam on January 2nd. Snowshoe is bring back the 24 Hours at Snowshoe with over $50,000 is prizes. The coolest is the winning College team will receive the “hero prize” which entitles their entire campus to half priced 2014-15 season passes!!
While we’re on the contest wagon, Winterplace is having a weekly drawing for free lift tickets, equipment rentals, and group lessons, for the whole famn damily (limited to family of 6). The drawing occurs every Monday and you can enter here.
You guys take care out on the slopes today and have a festive and safe New Year’s. Talk to you guys again next year.
Tim Bahlke
Drop me an email at [email protected] to let me know what you think or with suggestions on what we could be doing better.