Thursday Afternoon Update –
It’s been a beautiful day to be in the mountains today. Cold, sunny and lots of snow!
Here’s a couple of notes….
New Messageboard! – We keep trying to accommodate the growth of the website and the new messageboard is a faster product and allows for a few more administrative bells and whistles. We’ve included a few more categories and look forward to seeing those grow in the seasons to come. All existing member’s usernames and passwords are the same…and we’ve managed to import all of the message threads so those of you who deem it important to have the longest or oldest thread…you still have them!
If you haven’t joined…you should…we have a lot of good commentary in there!
Some Questions and Comments Received today –
Randy Merritt asks, "With so much snow on the ground and more snow in the forecast why are resorts closing. I mean it’s the most snow we have had all season?????"
ANSWER: We’ve said this many times in the past…it is NEVER a lack of snow that closes the slopes…it’s the lack of participants. When the weather warms off of the mountain people begin thinking of golf, hiking, mountain biking, etc…and the resorts close them down for a lack of people. If you ever want to see a resort stay longer…round up a ton of people. It is PEOPLE that fund the bills…not snow.
Jay Sterling of Athens Georgia wrote: -"Oh well. No tickets, but thank you anyway for the opportunity to enter the contest! It was fun to see all of the traffic and support on the site – really evident w/ events like todays ticket giveaway. It’s been amazing to watch this site grow and improve over the past few seasons. You have done a great job and have provided an unbelievable service to the skiing community. Thanks again for all of your efforts. Again, you’ve done an amazing job and you have EANRED the respect of many faithful supporters, including myself. Have a great day!"
Note: We get a lot of these kinds of emails…just this one felt good…so we shared it.
Tom Curley wrote – "If it is cold enough to make snow at night late in the season, do they blow snow or do they just figure that the base is deep enough and there are not enough customers to justify snow making. In other words do the resorts still strive for a quality "product" late in the season?"
ANSWER: We think that history speaks for itself. Usually the conditions in mid-to-late March at the resorts are as good as mid season except that the snow tends to get a little slushy or soft. This season…we’re thinking that unless things go blazingly hot next week (which is not forecasted) we’ll see some resorts close down with THE BEST conditions they’ve had all season. How weird will that be? A few resorts are closing this Sunday…and we have 4-6" and up to a FOOT of snow coming in Friday-Saturday. Tell me that won’t be strange!
Check the ski report for the anticipated closing schedules…
James Lewis wrote – Thanks so much for the FREE TICKETS. My girlfriend and I will use the tickets this coming weekend at Ober Gat.
By the way, I work for NOAA in Charleston, SC. Your firsthand reports of mountain weather conditions are always a great way to verify or invalidate forecasts (forecasts from other NOAA offices). I just discovered your site this past January. I look forward to using your site much more in the future."
NOTE: We are growing our audience everyday. Even with one of the strangest winters on record, we have had THE MOST traffic, and WAY more interactive support from the ski resorts, and television stations all up and down the east coast. Hundreds of magazines and newspapers have written us…and as we mentioned…more ski resorts than ever have made it a point to make us a priority in their marketing.
We have some great plans for next season. We have so many new services scheduled to offer via the websites that we have already made one HUGE decision. We will not be rebuilding the website for next season! That undertaking killed us and we waited so late to get going that we never really got caught up this season. We may tweak the navigation a bit…but most of the upgrades to the site for the 2005-2006 season will be in the form of services, weather, cameras, and we already have committments for MORE GIVEAWAYS THAN EVER. Several ski shops off the mountains are coming online with us and we’re really excited about some new interactive weather offerings that we have going in place. Suffice it to say that we will be taking things up in a HUGE way.
Brian writes – "I am considering coming up from FL today but the weather.com for Banner Elk says rain tomorrow- but all the resort forecasts call for snow. Who should I believe? And if it does rain is the weekend shot? Any help? Brian"
ANSWER: Now Brian…hold your hand out. A little further please. That’s good! S-L-A-P! You never have to go anywhere other than RIGHT HERE. We’re going to tell you the absolute, uninhibited truth regarding everything happening up here. We have nobody telling us WHAT we have to report so we give it to you independently. EXPECT SNOW!