Snowshoe Mountain Adds Trail Openings – Wisp Opens Saturday – NC Has THREE Resorts Open!

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Snowshoe Mountain is still offering the most terrain to play on in the region and they continue to get better, early season cooperation from Mother Nature than most of the rest of the Southeast’s ski areas have received. A good illustration of that can be seen this morning as temperatures in their "neck of the woods" is 18° when most of

Snowshoe has added two more open trails since yesterday and they now have eight trails available, serviced by three lifts. They are making snow to beat the band (WISH WE HAD SOME WEBCAMERAS TO SEE IT!!!) and they are certain to open more trails soon!

Laura Parquette writes, "We are offering 3 lifts and 8 trails today. Snowmaking occured overnight and will continue throughout the day as temperatures allow. The following slopes are open: Heisler Way, Whistlepunk, Skidder, Crosscut, Spruce Glades, Cut-Off, Tail Tree and Whiffletree. Open lifts: Skidder, Ballhooter and Powdermonkey. Snowmaking began on 3 new trails, as we prepare to expand our open terrain in the coming week."

That’s good news for all skiers and particularly for those of us who plan to attend Snowshoe’s Media Weekend next weekend. The Arctic Blast could not have been timed any better!

WISP RESORT IS OPENING SATURDAY!

The temp at 8am this morning at the Garrett County, Maryland ski area is 22° and they too are making tons of snow. They will be opening tomorrow and will offering 9am to 9pm skiing and riding. Their adult ticket will be $25 on Saturday and juniors can ski and ride for just $15!

TIMBERLINE is showing 20° this morning and they are blasting their hill preparing for their December 6th opening! We received no word from Winterplace, but we’d expect that they too are making tons of snow readying for next weekend’s opening.

BRYCE RESORT is making snow as of 8:30am this morning. Like many of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic ski areas – they will open December 7th. Massanutten is also making snow and they plan on opening December 7th.

It’s 27° this morning at Wintergreen and they had been hinting that they may open this weekend, but we have not heard from them as yet. We’re thinking that they may be postponing that until one day next week, but we will keep you posted as soon as we get word.

THREE NORTH CAROLINA RESORTS ARE SKIING TODAY – THE REST HAVE CIRCLED DECEMBER 3rd AS THE BIG SNOWMAKING DAY!

If you guys were paying attention a bit more than a week ago we wrote that all of the ski areas would be circling December 3rd on their calendars and probably scribbling the word "snowmaking" above it. The reason is that for most of the North Carolina resorts the last 10 days or so has just been too "iffy" for them to pull the trigger on their snowmaking equipment. There HAVE been some windows of snowmaking opportunities and Appalachian in Blowing Rock, Cataloochee in Maggie Valley and Sugar Mountain in Banner Elk have literally taken advantage of nearly every opportunity and as such those three mountains have been able to remain open uninterrupted albeit with only two to three trails and thin coverage. (Cataloochee has been operating on their normal, early season opening schedule wherein they are only open on weekends, but even that schedule has been uninterrupted.)

It appears that those three made some snow last night (and Sugar still was as of 8am this morning) but there may be no more snowmaking from now until sometime on Monday when the temperatures are forecasted to dive down into the teens across the region. Monday IS December 3rd and it appears that is the date that Old Man Winter has marked as the day that "he" plans on coming in and sticking around for a bit.

According to WCNC’s Meteorologist Brad Panovich the FRIGID temperatures should stick around for at least 14 days! That is phenomenal news! So this should be the last weekend of marginal temps and limited trail openings for some time. You can COUNT ON every ski resort in the state of North Carolina to be blasting every available piece of snowmaking equipment to open up resorts that have yet to make snow…and to open more terrain on those like App, Cataloochee and Sugar – that have been fighting Mother Nature with all of their being.

SO KEEP YOUR CHIN UP ON THIS "MARGINAL" WEEKEND!

The excitement is building towards Monday’s arctic blast, but this weekend will be one of "two-halves". Today and Saturday should be pretty nice with temps in the upper 40s for highs and maybe a 27° overnight low tonight, and 30° Saturday night. Highs on Saturday should be near 50°. Sunday will bring in some rain and yucky conditions.

Appalachian has three trails open right now, Cataloochee has three and Sugar Mountain is offering four trails. That’s it for now, but thankfully the rest will be bombing the slopes on Monday!

Until Next Time…Send your comments, photos and videos to: [email protected]  

See You On The Slopes!

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Mark Your Calendars for December 3rd as The Day Old Man Winter Comes in and Hangs Around!
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Jessica Scowcroft of Timberline sent us this phenomenal shot of their ongoing snow making in preparation for OPENING DAY, December 6th – They will als
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