Story by Mike Doble – [email protected]
It’s SUMMIT WEEKEND and SNOW will fall!
It’s 5:30am and I’m doing a quick glance around the region – mostly looking at the weather reports and updating the fact that it’s "Summit Friday". Some of our crew high-tailed it to Marlington, WV last night and I know theKenDog is planning on being at first chair at Snowshoe at about the same time I’ll ve driving I-77 in Virginia.
Several of our peeps are heading up this morning and by anywhere from noon to 2pm we should all be hanging around the Village and/or on the slopes.
My usually trusty skiSE Laptop wasn’t being so trustworthy this morning so I am in even more of a rush now to hit the road. I’ve updated the report this morning so go check it out. Not all of the ski areas are early birds, so we’ve updated as best as possible this morning.
There’s been NO snowmaking overnight so expect conditions to be pretty much what they were on Thursday with the possibility of a trail or two less out there across the region.
MAN this weather has been nuts hasn’t it? I’ve been in "golf mode" advancing our efforts on www.GolfNorthCarolina.com for the last week and some change so I wasn’t even aware that Wolf Ridge had closed although that doesn’t surprise me as I suggested this past weekend that they would be the first of the "larger" ski areas to cease snow ops for this season. They are hinting that they would reopen either today (Friday) or Saturday "weather permitting". However we all know that the weather hasn’t been "permitting" as much this year as within a normal season. If you have desires to ride at Wolf Ridge, I’d suggest calling ahead.
Sapphire Valley is CLOSED FOR THE SEASON. No surprise there. Gracious, their season lasted all but about two or three eye blinks in the overall scheme of things.
Things are looking rather "worn" across the North Carolina ski areas. Appalachian and Cataloochee are your BEST BETS for the best coverage and snow quality right now, although there are plenty of SPRING CONDITIONS and pretty good coverage available on most trails at Sugar and Beech.
March Madness is just that this season. Within a typical ski and snowboarding season we are usually at least operating with plenty of snow and some colder conditions with some of the biggest snows coming in March. It isn’t looking like THAT will be happening according to the weather gurus out there.
We can hope though…
As per the WV ski areas…Joe Stevens informed me on Thursday that due in part to how the weather has affected the ski resorts within VA, NC and TN, that the WV ski areas have actually had such a decent skier-visit season once they got open – that some of their resorts are actually AHEAD of last season’s numbers now.
That is incredible…but that’s how it goes. One door closes and another one opens and all that.
Despite the weather, we’ve got 80-90 snow-loving, SkiNC and SkiSoutheasters heading to Snowshoe for the SkiSoutheast.com/Snowshoe Summit – Part FIVE. Snowshoe is hosting their Coca Cola Mountain Madness and boasting more than 50 trails. (56 as of Thursday!)
FRANK, MARK, SARAH, MISSY and all of you peeps…thanks so much for being you. We look forward to having a blast this weekend and those of you who couldn’t make it or chose to be grinches…you will be missed. We should have a bomber weekend though regardless of the weather – ALTHOUGH everytime I head to Snowshoe it DOES SNOW! I have an AMAZING track record of it snowing on my trips. You can ask Ed Galford and any of the crew up there.
So if you’re thinking about heading up – go ahead and pack up, book those reservations using the SNOW PROMO CODE and meet up with us Saturday night at the party and get a FREE TEE and Sunday Lift Pass.
That’s it for now…we’ll update you later.
SkiMail me if you feel the need at [email protected] or [email protected]