Check the slope conditions report for individual details for YOUR favorite resort. There’s no question that conditions will be wonderful no matter where you choose to ski or ride today.
We have a TON of photos and video to post so we’re going to simply provide some needed notes and weather information and get you guys out where you belong — ON THE SLOPES!
A few people have asked us about why Canaan Valley’s trail count is going down, rather than up. We put in a call and the word is that Canaan has closed a few slopes to concentrate on getting them ready for the MLK crowd. If all goes as planned, they should be re-opening more terrain for Saturday.
Wintergreen Resort reports, “We have been making snow all week and the ski area looks great. We will be open today for both day and night operations, skiing and riding on 5 trails and 3 lifts will be running. The Slide (their snow tubing hill) will open today with 1 hour sessions starting at 2pm.”
Sarah Lovejoy wrote, “We have already started making snow on The Highlands and weather permitting, we plan to open Upper Cliffhanger and Lower Wild Turkey sometime next week. The Plunge tubing park, the Terrain Park and the Upper Crosstrail are also scheduled to open sometime next week.”
Snowshoe Mountain is back to 37 trails open for skiing and riding today. Vice President and General Manager, Bill Rock emailed me yesterday to inform me that they were making snow on The Cupp Run. (You know it’s been an unusual winter when the honcho gets excited about a slope opening!)
The Cupp Run is an exciting run and we’ve received a fair number of emails from people wanting to know when Snowshoe would get it opened up. Andrea Smith writes, “Snowmaking continued as long as temperatures permitted last night including Cupp Run where some progress was made. Stay tuned for an announcement on opening late next week, weather permitting. Upper Whistlepunk, Singletree and Moonshine opened in the Snowshoe Ski Area today and Buck Saw, Little Spruce, Laurel Run and the Flying Eagle Lift were added to the list at the Silver Creek Ski Area. All open slopes were groomed overnight.”
Snowshoe has nearly 150 acres of terrain open for skiing and riding now!
Timberline Resort has 8 trails open today. (SSAA is reporting 5.) During this long holiday weekend expect almost continuous activity at Timberline Lodge from early morning breakfast in the Timberhaus Cafeteria at 6 am until closing of Timber Pub at 2 am. Entertainment to be featured will include the Mach Willie ensemble 4 pm until 10 pm and McClure’s Drive from 10 am until 2 am on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of Martin Luther King weekend. There is No cover charge. (We want to thank Pam Long for really becoming active lately in helping us get the word out about this great resort.)
Wisp Resort is also got some fun planned for this weekend (in addition to 14 trails of snow-filled fun!) – They are combining MLK Weekend with what they are calling a “”NextSnow Event”. According to the resort this is an event like no other! Boys and girls ages 9 – 13 compete as skiers or boarders in this one class qualifier! Events include Cross Racing, Slopestyle, Rails and Big Air Jump. Athletes must compete in ALL events. The winner of the qualifier will be invited to compete in the Nextsnow Search Finals in Vermont on March 2 – 4. They also are hosting Winterblast Weekend sponsored by Miller Lite! Saturday – Monday, January 13 – 15. Stage Wisp Concert with Vs. The Earth 8pm – 11pm, Rail Jam, Sports Illustrated Next Snow Competition, ski races & total fun!
Appalachian has reopened their popular terrain park. We were watching their live cam yesterday while two groomers were pushing huge banks of snow around to setup their current configuration. Things will be sweet at App today!
Hawksnest has Upper Sock Em Dog open which means that they too have their terrain park features in place from top to bottom. Richard Rominger has been placed in charge of maintaining the terrain park, so look for some nice things up their this season. Hawknest also has their popular snow tubing park open for the weekend.
Sapphire Valley is open for this weekend. We’ve received a fair amount of emails about this coming weekend over there. They are open with their one trail and the Frozen Falls Tubing Park.
Scaly Mountain – Everyone’s kind of forgotten about these guys. The little hill that used to be a ski area switched to tubing only a few years ago and simply has not been able to get open this season. They will not operate for MLK weekend, but they are pointing towards being open for the following weekend for tubing only.
Wolf Ridge Resort is doing something that no other resort in the Southeast can claim today. They are debuting a brand new slope that the public has yet to ski on! They will open the new slope, Boardwalk and the Terrain Park, Park Place Friday morning at 10:00 AM. They also report that they will work to open Viewfinder as soon as possible and move from there to the Bowl and the connector behind the Upper Lodge that will allow skiers access to the entire mountain.
Do us a favor and if you’re hitting the slopes today or this weekend, send us some photos of the slopes, the lift lines, etc.
MLK Weekend Weather Looks a Little Wet…and wetter depending on where you’re headed…
As of this update, rain is already falling in some portions of West Virginia. The forecast is looking like light rain (mostly of the scattered variety) for most of the weekend. 60-70% chance of rain north into portions of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland and 40% of rain further south into North Carolina.
Meteorologists and other weather gurus seems to be somewhat mixed on what’s going to happen, however all agree that will see some under-developed snow each day. Three of the four sources that we pull info from say that whatever rain we will have, will be more on the scattered, light drizzle type.
In Western North Carolina there’s a 40% chance of scattered drizzle on Saturday and Sunday. Neither day should be too bad…with only periods of rain. Sunday looks like the best day of the weekend (other than today) with skies clearing a bit by noon. Both days will be mild and the snow p-r-e-t-t-y nice! MLK Monday looks to be the worst of the weekend with 80% chance of rain early BUT snow later in the evening.
Further north looks much the same except slightly more widespread rain or showers from time to time.
The great news is that Tuesday looks snowy and cold with highs in the low 30s and an overnight low of 20°! Wednesday and Thursday of next week are also COLD ones with highs in the mid to upper 20s and lows in the mid teens! Winter looks to be cooperating now!
Enjoy your day!
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Until Next Time…
THINK COLD AND SNOW!!!
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For more information about the ski resorts of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic visit www.SkiSoutheast.com
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