First the top news story of the morning…
Some resorts are making snow! We were up at the top of Sugar Mountain’s Big Red slope on Thursday afternoon getting the old Big Red Cam reactivated. It’s been down for nearly a year. However it’s back up and viewable! In fact that internet connectivity is so good that we’re going to try and go LIVE VIDEO later today. For now it is sending a large format image nearly every second so it is cooking!
You can view that camera by click here> Sugar Mountain LIVE Web Cam
We got the camera reinstalled late in the afternoon and I was at home late last night and popped onto the camera’s page and I was met with a screen of black ice! Sugar had begun making snow AND that snowmaker was aimed right at the camera! We couldn’t see a thing and thought for a moment that we’d had a malfunction. I panned the camera remotely over to the right a bit and cleared the ice on the dome and now we’re at least seeing that Sugar is continuing to make snow right now as of 8am this morning.
Even BETTER news is the fact that Ski Beech was able to crank up the snow guns and they too are making snow. That has already made a huge difference in the way they are looking this morning and that will be SWEET news to President’s Day Weekend travelers! We installed a NEW LIVE CAM up on Beech Mountain, right on the Beech Mountain Parkway up at The Inns of Beech Mountain! We partnered up with Fred Barth up there and that new camera will not only allow us to view the road conditions on the parkway as it approaches the entrance to Ski Beech, it offers some awesome live views of Ski Beech! Fred has upgraded the internet connection up there to allow for 1meg uploads and that should kick in early next week. For now we’re seeing new images every 3 seconds. Then we should be able to go at least every second and possible with LIVE VIDEO feeds!
Check out that LIVE CAM by clicking here> Ski Beech LIVE Web Cam
We invite you guys to visit www.HighCountryWebCams.com as it now has more than 25 webcams pointed at numerous locations all over the region. We have some new cams coming on later today and we’ll announce those as soon as we have them LIVE. We’re working to reactivate some older cams that are down at the moment and once we have all of those running later in the month, we should be able to provide up to 40 live views of the mountains of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic. We’ve been seeing an average of 22,000 unique visitors a day on that site and we invite YOU to check those out.
As we predicted Wednesday and again on Thursday – we thought that temperatures were going to be borderline for any other ski area in North Carolina to make snow and that is the case. Only Sugar and Beech were cold enough to do so. The rest look well groomed and they are in good shape for the long, holiday weekend.
Sugar and Ski Beech are both in the upper 20s this morning. Everybody else is in the low and mid 30s. It’s chilly out and that is good for allowing the snow to setup and be in great shape for the weekend. If you’re headed this way for a ski getaway – it will be a great one!
NO OTHER RESORT IN THE SOUTHEAST OR MID ATLANTIC MADE SNOW???!!!
We’re seeing 27° at Canaan Valley this morning, 24° at Snowshoe, 27° at Winterplace and 27° at Wisp Resort – but none of those resorts reported any snowmaking overnight. They are all planning on making snow as temperatures are forecasted to be plenty cold enough later tonight. There’s also good chances at natural snow Saturday through Monday into West Virginia and Maryland and frigid cold temps are forecasted into early next week. Even colder air looks to be filtering into the region as we get into the middle of next week with even more chances of natural snow.
CONDITIONS LOOK PRETTY DARN GOOD FOR THIS PRESIDENT’S DAY WEEKEND!
…and even better as we get into next week and weekend!
If you haven’t made it to your favorite mountain for a ski getaway yet this season, you’ve really missed out on one of the better ones. Conditions are really quite nice across the board and if you’ve been putting it off wanting to make sure of a good weather week and weekend – we’re looking at a good stretch over the next seven to ten days! Make reservations today and hit the mountains for a great ski getaway. Many resorts are offering some pretty sweet deals and TODAY is your last chance to book with Snowshoe’s "STAY TWO NIGHTS and get the THIRD ONE FREE!"
Clicl here for that deal> Snowshoe’s "Third Night Free!" Special
WE HAVE SOME SWEET SUMMITS PLANNED OVER THE NEXT THREE WEEKS!
February 21st is the weekend that we have the SkiNC/SkiBeech Summit planned. We are up to 108 people who are committed to attend and the weather is setting up great for what should be FUN event. We’ll shore up some plans early next week, but suffice to say that it will be a blast and if you have not made plans to attend, join the messageboard today (it’s FREE) and you can come join us for a huge gathering at Ski Beech next Saturday and ski or ride for HALF THE PRICE for an all day ticket!
Visit the Summit page for more details or cruise over the messageboard and see what some of the guys and gals are saying. Sounds like a fun time with family and friends. Meet some new friends and hookup with some old ones!
We also have the second annual SkiSoutheast.com / Snowshoe Summit happening on March 6th and 7th! We’ll talk more about that one over the next couple of days. According to Snowshoe’s Laura Parquette – not many people have made reservations using the discount code. From the sound of things we’re going to have a ton of people…but for some reason we’re not seeing evidence of that.
For now click over to the SkiSoutheast/Snowshoe Summit page and make plans to join us!
The conditions are looking very nice today! There is some snow in the forecast and this is a long weekend! Come on up and enjoy the fun this weekend!
Until Next Time…
Send your comments, photos, videos and trip reports to: [email protected]