The conditions on Good Friday were o-k-a-y. The surface was a little “choppy”. The winds ranged from light to brisk at times and the temps were a bit on the chilly side. UM. WAIT! HOLD ON…
[KICK. BUMP.]
Sorry about that guys. I was slightly stuck in “LAKE MODE” there for a moment and describing what the day was like over on the water. Oddly enough though, that could have served as the description on the snow as well. Things get a little “choppy” after the first hour or so of skier or snowboarder traffic with the diminishing bases that we’re seeing on the last three ski areas still standing today.
Check the snow report for specifics, but suffice to say that SNOWSHOE leads the way with 35 slopes and trails AND NIGHT SESSIONS on Saturday. APPALACHIAN is next with 9 slopes open and CATALOOCHEE is operating with 4.
I was looking around some of our archived content earlier this morning to see if I could spot what some of the base depths looked like ONE YEAR AGO TODAY and I did find that Sugar’s reported base depth was 15-54″ on March 24th, 2015. Sugar closed during the middle of this past week. There’s NOTHING CLOSE to 54″ of snow on any mountain, anywhere east of the Mississippi this morning.
Today will be Cataloochee’s last day of the season. It’s funny but Cat fans are hard core. I received this email from someone on Friday,
“Hey i saw on facebook that the weather is turning a little colder the first of april and that cat is thinking about extending the season. What have ya’ll heard?”
There MUST have been something to the idea or perhaps there was a drinking party happening somewhere close to Maggie Valley, because about an hour later on Friday I received this email (suspiciously similar but from a different address),
“Yo mike. Have you heard that cataloochee is thinking about staying open into april? they’re sayin that the weather is getting cold and they’re thinking about staying open.”
I think that SOMEONE or a couple of “SOMEONE’S” were trying to get away with an early April Fool’s joke since the ski areas are not going to be able to stay open until then. (I know that App is still saying that they will remain open until April 2nd, but we’re just not seeing that. We’ll see.)
I checked out Cat’s Facebook page and they are indeed closing after day sessions TODAY. Snowshoe will call Easter Sunday (tomorrow) their last hurrah and Appalachian probably could or should (not due to a lack of snow, but a lack of skier interest).
However, App DOES plan to remain open for any die-hard snow lover…so kudos to them…both App and the die-hards.
I’m going back to the lake.
Oh yea, I forgot to mention for about the 100th time this season – that Vail Alerts JUST informed me that Vail saw 5″ of snow overnight. Beaver Creek received 8″, Keystone 8″ and Breck received 11″. Yet ANOTHER EPIC day of snow play out west.
This REALLY HAS been a season for the ages.
That’s it for me today.
Email me anytime and about anything at: [email protected]
Be sure to VISIT OUR SNOW FORUM. JOIN AND TAKE PART! It’s Free!
Also visit all of our Ski Resort WebCams.
Also be sure to sign up for our newsletters. It’s FREE and easy. Click in the signup to the right