The Best Weekend of the Season is Here! Great Weather, Great Conditions, No Snowmaking and More Terrain Open!

First Trax

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This morning’s report will be a short one as we are putting the finishing touches on an all-night server upgrade that was supposed to have us down for about an hour that basically had the websites down all evening. Such is life in this computer age. Didn’t we go through this two seasons ago? Anyway…we’re up…even with toothpicks holding my eyelids up.

Check the slope conditions page for details on all of the individual trail openings today.

Here’s some notes of interest:

The mild temps forecasted for the weekend must have arrived a bit earlier than forecasted as late yesterday afternoon area weather guru, Ray Russell was forecasting a low of 15° for the valleys around Boone, Blowing Rock and Banner Elk…and the coldest temps in the High Country this morning is a 22° reading in Valle Crucis. App only dropped to 34°, Sugar 33°, Hawksnest 31° and Snowshoe 28 Beech 35°.

Jessica Scowcroft of Timberline Resort in West Virginia wrote us yesterday, "We now have 14 trails open!!!! We just opened Bear Stroll, Winterset, Winterset Spur, and Off the Wall. Scheduled to open this afternoon is Fire Road and Easy Does It. We are hoping to open Upper Dew Drop next. The snowmakers are hard at work making snow on Dew Drop and Lower Thunderstruck!"

That is great news and conditions should be pristine for this weekend!

Winterplace Resort opened more terrain for this weekend and now has 18 trails to enjoy!

Snowshoe Mountain goes to 46 trails including some expert terrain that will create a bunch of excitement this weekend. Laura Parquette writes, "**Please be aware there will be a delayed, 10am opening for both Cupp Run and the Western Territory Lift** It’s going to be a beautiful day at Snowshoe! We expand our terrain again this morning, with the addition of Cupp Run and Camp 99. Cupp is our 1.5 mile, 1,500′ vertical signature slope in the Western Territory, while Camp 99 is the second of our three new trails for this season to debut. Both slopes will greatly enhance the expert skier experience, and it couldn’t come at a better time–conditions should be some of the BEST THIS SEASON, this weekend!"

We finally were able to make contact with The Homestead in Virginia. Most reporting services are still reporting – NO REPORT – from them, however John Corriveau, The Homestead’s Director of Recreation in Hot Springs, Virginia is now sending us daily content to share with you guys.

He writes this morning, "Currently (Friday) we are open half way but starting Saturday we will be open all the way to the top with 4 runs open, 30 inches of base."

They also have implemented four new kids snowmobiles to enjoy the snow on…and we’ll have to get more information on that!

I don’t know WHAT happened at Wintergreen in the last 24 hours but they upped their base depth report 20" in the last 24 hours. They had been upping it every day so the 20" jump HAS to be an adjustment of some sort. We can also report that they opened 4 additional trails for today (10 open now) and maybe there are some whales of snow on some of those that upped the average base! They wrote, "More slopes open today! The Upper Cross Trail, Sunrise, Tequila and the upper part of Tyro are now open! Eagles Swoop, the Lower Cross Trail, Potato Patch, Discovery Ridge and Dobie are also open today. For those guests that want to tube, The Plunge and The Slide will be open today. Tubing tickets are on sale now over the web and in person. The Slide will be open 10am-6pm Saturday and Sunday."

Don’t forget about Appalachian’s Shred for the Cup Series comp that is going on today. That should be quite an event to watch. Some of the area’s best tricksters will be competing to win cash and prizes over at the Terrain Park. Appalachian has 7 trails open for today and pristine conditions on 70% of the trails (7 of 10 open).

Hawksnest’s Justin Grimes has been fun to read this winter. He is posting the updates to the new SkiHawk.com website and I have been enjoying his fresh take on daily updates. This morning he writes, "Wow! What a marvelous weekend this should be for snowsports with plenty of fresh powder and moderating temperatures forecast for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday." He also shared the fact, "Why wait in long lines at other mountains when you can enjoy mounds of snow and great conditions and no lift lines at Hawksnest?"

Very cool. Now go! Get over there! Hawksnest looks p-r-e-t-t-y sweet this morning guys and gals. You should give them a visit.

Ski Beech has been getting some nice comments of late. I have personally spoken with a number of people who have commented about how much more effective Beech’s snowmaking has been this season. Before I get a hundred emails commenting about how late they waited to BEGIN making snow (right before Christmas), I am speaking MORE to the fact that Ski Beech has an entirely new snowmaking crew this season and word is that this crew is staying on the mountain when snowmaking is going on to insure the best of the best. They’ve made an amazing transformation from just a week ago to the pristine conditions offered today on 7 trails so kudos to them.

If you want a lesson on weather inversions…check out this item of interest on Sugar Mountain this morning. According to the two weather stations at Sugar, the low temp at the top of their mountain was 33.5° this morning. At the base, it dropped down to 15.7°. That is a HUGE difference just from top to bottom! Crazy weather. Meteorologist Brad Panovich mentioned that he thought Friday night was prime for inversions and I guess he nailed it.

Sugar is leading the open terrain scenarios with 12 trails today and they have opened their tubing hill for the first time this season. 4 lanes of fun await. Don’t forget they also are showing off their new 10,000 sf ice skating rink as well!

Wolf Ridge is open for snowtubing, snow skiing, snowboarding, with terrain park open and 5 slopes today. They are loaded and ready for a great weekend!

That’s it for this morning. None of the resorts will be making snow today and it should be PRIMO weather and conditions no matter where you plan to ride today. Get us some trail reports, photos, videos and help us tell the world how great the skiing is here in the Southeast right now!

Enjoy your day…

Until Next time…

Be sure to visit www.SkiSoutheast.com  for more news from the rest of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic ski areas!

Send your snow photos, videos, comments or emails to: [email protected]

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Marketing Director Drew Stanley of Appalachian Ski Mountain snapped this phenomenal photograph early yesterday morning showing some awesome conditions
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