Check the Slope Conditions Page for Snow Totals, Temps and more. This morning I’m just “cleaning house” a little and addressing some comments that I feel the need to make.
I’ll be doing a feature story on Wisp Resort at Deep Creep in Maryland later in the week, but after being away from my office for several days I have a lot of work to catch up on, so I am only posting one morning update that will appear on both SkiNC.com and SkiSoutheast.com. Be sure to check out the photos of the day on each though because they are unique to each website. I posted a lot of photos that have been sent in during the last week from all around the Southeast and Mid Atlantic so be sure to click around.
We’re an Equal Opportunity POD Website
For those not in the know, “POD” stands for Photo of the Day. (I suppose it should be ‘POTD’ but what the heck. I was on the messageboard last night and notice a few people seemingly complaining that our Photos of the Day only feature one or two resorts and that we haven’t posted images of all of the resorts and one mentioned that we have posted NO images of Sugar Mountain!?!?! Huh?
First off, last season we posted MORE photos of Sugar Mountain than we did from ANY other resort. CLICK HERE to see the photo archives from the 2005-2006 season! Almost all of the resorts are featured. The few that were not, such as Canaan Resort in West Virginia was simply because we received none.
This season we have posted MORE images from almost all of the resorts in the region. SkiNC.com features the North Carolina resorts and SkiSoutheast.com represents the entire region of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic and we have MORE photos this season from all over than in any previous season.
The image posts come from YOU, our visitors, the volunteer On-Snow (or trip reporters) and the resort marketing crews. All of the marketing gurus at all of the snow sports resorts across the region will attest that we bug the heck out of them to send us recent photos of snow, events, etc. They know that our policy is “Information IN is Information OUT”. To see this season’s photos of the day thus far simply CLICK HERE!
For the record we have no agenda in posting or not posting images. If they are clear and have any value, we post them. If they are too small, vertical format instead of horizontal, etc we do not post them. As for those of you who claim we haven’t posted equitably, I have two things to say in response to that. The first is that the photos don’t come in equitably. Second, if you want to see more images of a particular resort, SEND US SOME at [email protected]
One last note of PODs. Last week the Wings Air Rescue helicopter unit was performing training sessions at Sugar and Hawksnest and we received some great aerials over both resorts. Be sure to click on the resort link of your choice from the front of the website and then click on the Photos of the Day on each page and you’ll see some nice photo submissions of this season.
To see the Wings Air photos CLICK HERE!
Articles R Us…
Someone emailed me the other day asking, “I was on another ski site recently and saw where they were boasting of the fact that they had posted some 800+ articles over the years. That made me wonder how many SkiSoutheast.com has posted. Can you share that number?” – Janet Crump from Washington D.C.
Janet, I can not say precisely because honestly I don’t know the answer to that question. I can tell you that there are very few websites other than newspaper sites that post DAILY reports, articles, trip reports, in addition to our contributing columnists. SkiNC and SkiSoutheast.com has posted AT LEAST a daily article or story every single open day of each of the last 12 ski seasons. Some resorts stay open longer, and some open earlier and some close later than others. Therefore OUR ski season usually lasts some 140 days and we often post a few days before they get started in mid-to-late November and then do a wrap up story a day or so after they’ve all closed. If you take those number of days and estimate that we’re approaching the halfway point of this season, it’s safe to say that we have posted more than 1700 stories since 1996.
Thanks for asking…
“SkiNC.com and SkiSoutheast.com is Always Going to Play Nice with the Resorts”
Where is this stuff coming from? I was emailed that statement this weekend in response to some posts that hit the messageboard this weekend. Do we work to PROMOTE the region’s ski resorts? You bet we do, but not for the reason and in the way that evidently a few of you think that we do. We put the best face on what’s happening around the ski resorts of the region BECAUSE we love the area and skiing in general. We want those resorts to succeed and prosper.
However, I challenge anyone to say that we have not been accurate and honest (as well as unbiased) in reporting for all areas. Over the years we have written some less than wonderful comments about several ski areas, not JUST one or two that some would suggest. We’re not going to post details here, but if you have a favorite (or less than favorite) resort, call their marketing staff and ask them if they have ever been upset with comments that have been written on this website. You may be surprised to find that is a relatively long list. However you should also ask them if they feel that we have been fair, equitable and a very good resource for spreading the word that there IS skiing and snowboarding in the Southeast.
Some would suggest that the resort owners, managers and marketing staffs have a “love – hate” relationship with us. I hope the heck that it’s mostly a LOVE relationship because we have more than 60,000 unique visitors a day during the busy portion of each ski season. That’s a lot of promotion! However, I am also wise enough to know that resorts cringe from time to time when we question base depths, surface conditions, natural snow reporting, etc.
I am sure that restaurants love and hate restaurant critics. I’m sure that movie producers love and hate Ebert and Roeper. We’ll accept their love and work to minimize any hate, but this website is here to report what’s actually happening.
If any of us who write for SkiNC or SkiSoutheast seem to write with a “glass half FULL” tilt to our commentaries, that’s because we ARE glass half full kind of people; and on top of all else – we LOVE the ski resorts of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic – and we LOVE snow!
Until Next Time…
THINK COLD AND SNOW!!!
Send comments and emails to: [email protected]
For more information about the ski resorts of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic visit www.SkiSoutheast.com
REMEMBER TO VIEW ARCHIVED ARTICLES IN CASE YOU MISSED A STORY POSTED EARLIER TODAY!