What a great Friday this is going to be. The end of the work week is always good, but even better today after a week of snow, frigid temps, and a ton of snowmaking. Adding to that is the fact that it is going to be a nice and sunny day at a lot of the resorts. Check out Wintergreen this AM.
The West Virginia and Maryland resorts just keep getting lucky this week. While the rest of the region will see blue skies today, Snowshoe, Canaan, Timberline, and Wisp are all forecasted to get another 1-2 inches of natural snow today before they too see bluebird skies tomorrow. Check out the webcam from Davis, WV (where Canaan and Timberline are) below. A week of snow has that area looking nice and wintry!
As I figured would happen, several resorts were able to open additional terrain for the upcoming weekend. I was also right in thinking that we would see our first resort get to 100% open. Woo! That honor goes to Massanutten. They now have all 14 of their runs open for your pleasure. Here are the others who have managed to bump up that open trail count:
- Wisp Resort went from 13 open runs to 18 today.
- Snowshoe has added several this week and is up to 49 open trails now on 189 acres. Best in the region right now.
- Beech opened Lower White Lightning and Meadows today in addition to Southern Star which re-opened this week. Only Oz, Upper White, and Crossway remain.
- Cataloochee went from 11 runs yesterday to 16 today, just two shy of being 100% open.
- Wolf Ridge added Powder Hill and Whistling Dixie to their open trail list today.
- Ober is now up to 7 open runs. It’s been a very productive week for them in terms of snowmaking. Yeti’s run debuts today.
- Wintergreen added 4 additional trails today to get to 19. Look for even more to open this weekend.
- Timberline is now up to 19 open runs, up 3 from yesterday.
Also of note, Sapphire Valley has managed to open their skiing operations for the first time this year. It’s been a struggle for those guys down in the southwestern portion of NC, but they managed to make snow around the clock for the most part over the past several days and get both the ski slopes and tubing open.
Events
There are a few events going on this weekend at the ski areas. Most notably, Winterfest takes place at Beech Mountain Resort this weekend. There’s a bunch of stuff going on out there including The Great Cardboard Box Derby and the Winterfest Beer Festival. The second one really peaks my interest. Over a dozen breweries will be out there and they’ll also have some live music. It should be a fun time. I’ll be out there so if you see me give me a shout.
You can find all of the events for this weekend and for the upcoming weeks and months over on the EVENTS CALENDAR page. I went through and updated that the other day with all the events at the ski areas (that I could find) for the rest of the season.
The weekend ahead looks FANTASTIC. This will easily be the best weekend of the season thus far. Blue skies and great snow should make for a fun few days. I’m stoked. You should be stoked. Everyone should be stoked! Enjoy the weekend and go Panthers!