The Blowing Rock Winterfest is going on with or without Winter!
Old Man Winter still hasn’t made up his darn mind about hanging around more often this season, but regardless, Blowing Rock Winterfest is happening today and Sunday.
We have gone LIVE with the Blowing Rock / Chetola Lake Camera and if you guys want to watch the Polar Plunge happening LIVE, here’s the place to see it! It may not be frozen to the point that they have to cut through 6” of ice to make it happen, but that water does have a thin layer of ice to it and it is VERY, VERY cold. We’re thinking people won’t be lingering in there for long! Check it out today at 10am. Click Here to Watch it LIVE
Other Saturday events are:
9am DOG SLEDDING – Watch amazing teams of Sled Dogs demonstrating their skills and ability. Running to around 5pm (Weather permitting) – LOCATION – Davant Field
10am THE POLAR PLUNGE Watch the brave, okay "insane” folks Take the Plunge into Chetola Lake . Sponsored by Chetola Resort. The #1 spectator sport in Blowing Rock.
10am FREE HAYRIDES RESUME – Courtesy of Mountain View Realty
10am FREE HOT CHOCOLATE – Downtown Blowing Rock
11am-1pm CHILLI CHALLENGE & MORE – The 8th annual event where you taste all the chili your Heart(burn) desires – plus live music to help the chili go down $7 Adults / $5 Children 12 & Under – Located at the Blowing Rock School Gymnasium
12noon ICE CARVING COMPETITION – Come see the best in the business turn blocks of Ice into works of art – FREE – Located in Memorial Park – Brought to you by Ice Sensations
11:30 & 1:30 PM Blowing Rock Stage Company presents GIRL OF THE FROZEN NORTH
2pm THE WINE TASTING – Come taste a wide selection of the best wines there are (and stay for the fabulous Auction to follow) – $20 – Located at Meadowbrook Inn (Tasting ends promptly at 4pm )
4pm THE WINE AUCTION – Let the bidding begin – Items for all budgets Located at Meadowbrook Inn
7:30pm WINTERGRASS LIVE – Starring STRICTLY CLEAN & DECENT. You won’t want to miss this fantastic trio perform at the Blowing Rock Stage Company ($12 Advance / $16 At Door) call 828-295-9627 for tickets
DUSK BONFIRE – Weather permitting in Memorial Park
The Beech Mountain Parkway Cam is back – kind of!
We’ve made three trips up to Beech Mountain over the last couple of weeks to tweak and then replace the Parkway Cam. After climbing the 22’ post numerous times and hanging perilously, while trying to get it running properly – we finally figured out that it was not the camera after all. It was some screwy programming and the Cat5 cable having some issues. We reprogrammed the camera and it still wasn’t working when we finally gave up and decided we’d hit it again on another day. We got up this morning and the darned thing is working! Go figure!
Here’s some notes from the resorts:
Ski Beech, Sugar and Wolf Laurel made snow last night and as of 6am this morning Sugar and Beech were, but the guns are already off now at 8am so it will be a great day on the slopes no matter where you go in the state.
Appalachian Ski Mountain took a page out of Snowshoe’s Terrain Gardens and they have created a new Beginner Terrain Park area on Thin Slice. That’s pretty cool. Appalachian arguably has the best terrain park in the state and some would say in the Southeast. Admittedly I have only see Appalachian’s, Hawksnest’s, Sugar’s, Snowshoe’s and Wisp’s and while I’d have to say that Appalachian’s is better than the other North Carolina resorts, it’s not quite on par with Snowshoe’s and Wisp’s. There was some messageboard commentaries posted by a few overly zealous Appalachian fans claiming that App had scored a top 10 in the east ranking by some magazine for the quality of their terrain park. Not so…but it is a nice one. If you’re into tricks, App is the place in NC. If you haven’t been over there, you ought to visit because you’d be amazed at some of the talent that we have in this area.
Hawksnest didn’t make snow as far as we can tell, but they are looking pretty nice for today. They have tubing open as well. We were up there yesterday afternoon and the crowd was having a ball.
Sapphire Valley finally remembered that they needed to tell somebody that they were running a ski resort. They posted an update to their website yesterday (not this morning) after 8 days of quiet. They have made some snow in the last 72 hours and they have bother slopes open. They DID mention on their website that they would be open today and Sunday, so we’re guessing yesterday’s report will be IT for a while again.
As mentioned before, Ski Beech was making snow as late as 6am this morning. So expect some very nice conditions today. The groomers were doing their thing as we watched this morning so riding the snow today at Ski Beech should be great. Get us some photos.
Sugar Mountain made snow last night but the guns are already off. They also have three lanes of tubing going as well. Conditions look really sweet at Sugar this morning as the sun was coming up on the mountain.
Wolf Laurel got an early start to today and posted a report nice and early (thanks guys). Wolf made snow last nice and their webcam shows a winter wonderland at the base areas. Expect very nice conditions today.
Get out and enjoy it today because some showers are moving into the region tomorrow.
Until Next Time!
Be sure to check out www.SkiSoutheast.com for more news and stories for all of the Southeast’s ski areas.
Be sure to email photos, snow reports and comments to: [email protected]