It’s either foggy, cloudy or drizzly and temps are in the 50s across the entire region and I’m bored so I’m changing things up this morning. You’ll note a distinctly different order to the updates this morning.
< Photo of Wisp’s Groomers doing their thing.
Don’t you guys wish everybody groomed like this? I captured this from Wisp Resort’s website this morning that shows a team of four snow groomers working in tandem, preparing a nice corduroy surface for riders.
Wisp is showing 57° this morning. They updated their snow report last night at 10pm, so there could be some tweaks to their offerings today. They showed 22 trails with 6 lifts, 9 lanes of snow tubing, and terrain parks all open. Their new Mountain Coaster is closed for Tuesday.
Canaan Valley in West Virginia reports 43° at 4am (when they posted their report) and Loose Granular conditions with 9 trails serviced by 2 lifts for day skiing only. Canaan has 5 beginner trails, 3 intermediate and 1 expert slope open today.
Timberline Resort is showing 45° this morning and 14 slopes open. A couple of people emailed us yesterday with a pretty cool observation. Tommy Gunter of Baltimore, MD wrote, "I was at Timberline on Monday and thought it was pretty cool that they had 14 slopes open and 11 of them were for beginners and there was 1 black diamond open and 2 double blacks. Notice no intermediates!"
Timberline has some of the best terrain in the region and that is an observation that many have shared with us. For you adrenaline junkies, the two double blacks open are "Off the Wall" and "Upper Silver Streak".
Skipping over to Bryce Resort in beautiful Bayse, Virginia – Horst and Ryan Locher have Brice looking pretty nice right now with 7 of 8 trails open from 9am-9pm. The only slope not open for today is their lone black diamond trail, "Hangover". They have 3 greens and 4 blues open with groomed conditions.
Tripping back across to the middle of WV…
Snowshoe’s Laura Parquette updated the snow report at 5:52am this morning and reported a low of 47° this am. They have a region-leading 46 trails open, serviced by 12 lifts on what they are calling wet snow and skier packed conditions. Snowshoe offers skiing, snowboarding, snow tubing, snowmobiling, and terrain park fun.
Laura reports that there are three features available in the Timberjack Terrain Garden; that the Halfpipe at Mountaineer is Closed; and the Spruce Glades Terrain Park is Open with six features.
Laura must have been on the same wavelength with us this morning because we’re paying special attention to how much of each type of skier level terrain is open and she wrote this morning, "Both Cupp and Camp 99 will greatly enhance the expert skier experience, but with so much open terrain, there is something available to challenge every level skier and rider. In fact, every beginner trail on the mountain is open, and there are plenty of great intermediates to choose from as well. Despite this brief warm spell, a two foot base coats our slopes, and conditions look to get even better with the return of cold weather and snowmaking at the end of the week. Now is the time to get in your car and get up here!"
Ditto…
For you Snowshoe and West Virginia fans… they are expecting some snow and temps in the teens to low 30s for Friday and Saturday. It WILL be a good weekend ahead up that way.
Trekking east again, but barely south into Virginia…
Massanutten Resort is reporting 48°and partly cloudy this morning. The high should reach near 70° today (forecasted 68°!). They have 6 trails open, 6 lanes of tubing and their CMB Terrain Park is open. Mass has 3 greens, 2 blues and Diamond Jim (a black) open from 9am to 10pm today.
Moving south to Hot Springs, Virginia and The Homestead Resort, John Corriveau informed us that they have 4 trails open today with groomed conditions for day skiing only. They will offer tubing for Friday and Saturday. They also have their Olympic Ice Skating Rink open til 5pm each day.
Wintergreen Resort which is also in Virginia is expecting to see 70° temps today as well. Look for some of the best Spring Skiing conditions around! They have 10 trails open for day and night skiing and they are also offering tubing. Sara Lovejoy writes, "Lots of sun! 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 will be open today from 2-9pm."
Now we head southwest over into southern West Virginia to the beautiful town of Flat Top, West Virginia – home to Winterplace Resort…just off of I-77.
Winterplace has 18 trails open with Loose Granular conditions for day and night skiing. They also have snowtubing open. Winterplace has 8 beginner slopes open, 9 blues (intermediates), and 1 expert slope (Drop Off). There is no terrain park open at this time.
< Hawksnest this morning
We now travel a couple of hours south into the Tarheel state (North Carolina for you left coasters). The first stop is Hawksnest Resort in Seven Devils, NC.
Hawksnest is already showing some wear with thin coverage and bare spots. They still have plenty of skiable terrain on the 6 trails that they have open and they are offering snow tubing as well.
It was 44° this morning and as of 9pm last night when they updated their snow report, they were planning to offer 3 greens and 3 blues for today…and their tubing hill.
Justin Grimes wanted us to inform you guys, "Our Season Specials begin this week! Specials good through out January and February begin this week. Starting Wednesday, Ladies receive free lift tickets for the day or night sessions and beginning Thursday, patrons renting equipment from Hawknest receive free beginning lessons from the Topgun Snowsports School staff."
Next stop is Appalachian Ski Mountain in quaint Blowing Rock, North Carolina. They reported a low of 41° this morning. It is now already 46° at 9am and they offer groomed conditions on 8 slopes, which include their 2 terrain parks. App is offering 2 greens, 5 blues (which also include the Appal Jam and Appaljack Terrain parks) and Upper Big Appal (their lone black open).
<Beech this morning
For no reason other than the fact that I am bored, we’ll drive right past Sugar Mountain and head up to Ski Beech next.
Ski Beech is reporting 44° this morning and they had to close down 2 trails that were open yesterday. They now have 5 trails open with plenty of skiable terrain but numerous thin coverage areas and bare spots. They have 2 greens and 3 blues open til 10pm.
Sugar Mountain is next. They are reporting 41° this morning and the most terrain open in the state with 12 slopes and trails open. They are reporting variable conditions. It is foggy this morning but one look at the live web cams show that conditions look pretty decent there this morning.
We got a couple of emails detailing what were the beginnings of some thin coverage along trail merges yesterday. Sugar is offering 4 greens, 7 blues and 1 black (Tom Terrific)…as well as tubing and ice skating.
Wolf Ridge Resort is showing 53° this morning and 6 trails open…and all open trails are greens (beginner terrain). Wolf is reporting "natural and manmade powder" on their website this morning and "Yes" under their snowmaking report…with the qualifier of "as temps and conditions permit".
The bottom line is Wolf looks darn nice this morning…but their conditions are more toward groomed and variable surface conditions and no snowmaking since January 4th (4 days ago).
For the heck of it, let’s look at Ober Gatlinburg in the Great Smokies next.
Kathy Doyle writes, "It was 55° and we’ll be skiing from noon til 10pm. The Upper Half of Bear Run open. Mogul Ridge is not groomed and has some thin & bare spots."
That is 2 greens, 2 blues and a black (Mogul Ridge).
We’ll now drive slightly south to the gorgeous community of Maggie Valley, North Carolina and Cataloochee Ski Area.
The Cat has 7 trails open for day and night skiing. They offer 5 greens (beginners), and 2 blues (intermediates) open.
Sapphire Valley’s marketing guys need to go to work in politics because yesterday morning they posted the first updated ski conditions to their website in days. They reported "POWDER" and "FROZEN POWDER" surface conditions and they reported that they made snow.
Ummm…no. We love the little ski resort…but they did not make snow yesterday and the closest Powder would be from the storm out west. Oh well, at least they posted an update to their website, right?!?!
I’m STILL BORED!…but that ends the tour for today. Get the heck off my bus and go ski or ride somewhere!
Until Next Time…Send your comments, photos and videos to: [email protected]
For resort news, photos and videos from ALL of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic ski areas, visit www.SkiSoutheast.com
See You On The Slopes!