Lots’s Going On, Lot’s to Share, Just Relatively Incoherent Rambling Today…so read on

First Trax

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A look around several of the webcams this morning is showing some pretty foggy conditions early. That should give way to sunny skies (with a few clouds here and there) and temps in the 30s all day. It should be MARVELOUS.

SPEAKING OF M-A-R-V-E-L-O-U-S…

A few of our messageboard crew are on an extended Tahoe Ski trip and sent some nice pics that you guys can see on the messageboard if you want to share in their experience. Click HERE to see> Tahoe Ski Trip Pics 

While we’re on McKelvy and crew, he and Joe Harmon had a little "tune-up" at Sugar just before they flew out and they shared a snippet of video. It’s short but good. Click here to see> Sugar Mountain Video.

BEECH NEEDS TO FIX THEIR EMAIL BROADCASTS…

Anyone else on Ski Beech’s email list? Do all of you get like six or eight emails everytime they send ONE? I just delete away when I get them (except for the one I read) but we’ve received many emails from you guys asking US to do something about them. FYI we are not the ones sending that out. The program that we have does not allow duplicates. My guess is that Beech’s email outreach must have quite a lot of duplicate addresses in it and they aren’t sending out as many as they think they are. They’ll read this and get it straight – maybe.

SATURDAY TRAFFIC BIGGER THAN MLK SATURDAY???

I don’t know about that but there are indications that yesterday was a HUGE skier visit day for the NC Ski Areas! If parking and traffic are any indication, Saturday was a top draw day at all of the ski areas. Sugar’s parking lot was packed all the way to the highway which we did not even see last Saturday.

Traffic was as bad as I’ve seen it on Hwy 105 around 4pm.

Lenny Cottom of Hawksnest told me earlier last week that their MLK weekend crowd was a "top five" for them. If the webcams provide a good barometer I’d say that yesterday had to be one of their best days ever…as well. The same for the rest of the ski resorts.

It’s good to see the heavy crowds, cause that’s what pays the bills.

MLK Weekend was Great…but others seem to agree with our assessment last week about it not necessarily being a record breaker. Translation: It was only a top five for Hawksnest and may the same is true elsewhere. We received these comments from our readers:

David Dinkins of Greenville wrote, "I was at Ski Beech all this past weekend and this is my third MLK weekend there in the last five years and I can tell you that it wasn’t not that crowded. My wife commented on it first and then I noticed. We skied up to the right side lift all day with no wait except for maybe 3-5 minutes a few times. The quad was busy but not the 45 minute waits we’ve seen before. Maybe you were right."

Meimei of Raleigh, NC (and a regular trail reporter) wrote, "Well, I would agree that there weren’t that many people here at Massanutten for a holiday weekend. Even mid-afternoon the wait for the basic beginner slope, Southern Comfort, was 5-10 minutes. The super cold weather, in the teens most of the day, might also have something to do with it. The green and blue runs were great. Packed powder. Most of the 7 inches of natural snow is still around on the mountain, although it melted off in the valley the next day. Diamond Jim was okay, but I was hearing a lot of ice from my skis under the machine powder. They were making snow on the unopened trails.

Also seemed like there were fewer people taking lessons. My friend’s 7yo ended up with a private lesson during the 10:30 clinic time because there weren’t any other kids. The ski school classes didn’t seem to be all over the green slope like they usually are. I know they were booked solid a week ago. But perhaps some people cancelled because of the cold.

Regards,
Meimei
Raleigh, NC"

ONLY A FEW COMMENTS ABOUT OUR NEW BASE DEPTH REPORTING IDEA…

We asked a few of the ski area operators what they thought about our new "no-numbers-base-depth-reporting" and I am surprised not to have received one comment about it – good or bad. However, we didn’t even ask our readers and we received these comments:

Bill Stedem of Matthews, NC wrote, "Your report this morning is why I use Skinorthcarolina.com (and SkiSoutheast.com) as my ONLY source for accurate skiing information.

#1 obsessed fan
Bill Stedem
Matthews, NC"

(We like obsessed fans Bill. Thanks.)

Cindy Style of Banner Elk wrote, "I have read your website for years and live in the high country and I do most of my skiing at Sugar and Beech. I have thought that somebody should have done away with what you guys call "marketing numbers" for a long time. For me I just want to know that there’s good depth under me and I go to Sugar most of the time cause they are better at making snow that Beech, but I too have always known that Sugar reports some fuzzy math. I don’t get to ski away from here too much but when I do I wouldn’t go anywhere without check with you guys first."

Bert Smelley of Richmond, Virginia wrote, "You guys are the best I’ve seen at telling people like it is. Love your new base reports. I’ve always thought it funny how a few SE resorts report averages more than those out west. Great stuff SkiSoutheast! PS: When are ya’ll gonna get us some SE hoodies?"

(We’ll work on that Bert and thanks!)

WHY, YES, DEAR, WE HAVE LOTS OF DEER!

Julie Anne Ramon wrote, "I’m coming up with my family next weekend and wanted to know if you guys have many deer up there?"

That’s almost one of the funniest questions we’ve received in a while. I’ve never thought much about that one because about everywhere I have gone skiing, there’s always deer around. They kind of go hand in hand. You know, large open acreage and deer. My family always counts into the dozens of deer when we drive up to Snowshoe or Wisp.

Coincidentally, we have a live camera on www.HighCountryWebCams.com that shows a herd of deer grazing each evening. Also, just yesterday afternoon I was over at the bottom of Beech Mountain feeding my horses when I saw (15) deer grazing in the pasture below.

Yes, Julie…you may catch a glimpse or two (or 15) of deer on your trip.

ARE THERE FEWER NC SKIERS WITH CAMERAS!?!?

This season we have seen a TON of photos submissions…maybe more than ever before…but MOST of those are coming from Virginia and West Virginia ski resorts. If you guys check out the SkiSoutheast.com photo gallery you will see a huge swing in photos received from ski areas all across the region. We have seen a few good images from Appalachian, a couple of good ones from Cataloochee, one or two from Wolf Ridge, a TON from Sugar, a few from Hawksnest…and almost none from Ski Beech.

I hadn’t noticed that trend this season until one astute reader wrote, "Why are you guys not showing off Ski Beech this season? I see all sorts of photos from elsewhere, just not Beech."

Well Beech may have the fewest, but we’ve not really received many from there over the last few seasons for some reason. Don’t know why really. Many of those that have been posted for Beech in the past (including videos) were taken by our staff.

Sylvia Murrow asked the same question but may have answered it herself when she wrote, "Hwy SkiNC, I’m not seeing many photos like the last years of Beech on your site. Is there another reason or because until recently their conditions have been awful? I noticed from your site that resorts up in WV have seen as much as 80" of snow, where Beech is something like 19". Is that it or something else?"

Sylvia…you probably answered your own question…and maybe ours as to why so few NC resort photos this season and so many others from elsewhere. A lot of our regular, more frequent skiers and riders have written about how so few times that they have skied or snowboarded this season. Conditions have just been better on the whole, further north thus far this season.

Now that conditions have been great for the last couple of weeks, we are seeing more NC ski area photos.

OH YEA, HERE’S THE QUICK NOTES FOR TODAY!!

Appalachian – 24° – Did not make snow and didn’t need to. Great base, 100% open, both terrain parks and ice skating all open.

<Cat Grooming this Morning!

Cataloochee – 20° – We watched as the groomer was doing his thing early this morning. Cat has the same 10 of 14 trails open today with a greay base and groomed surface conditions. They are open for day skiing only on Sundays. Join the Cat Crew this afternoon for the Cataloochee Recreational Race Series. $10.00 gets you in and $1.00 of your race entry fee will be donated to KARE the Kids Advocacy Resource Effort of Haywood County, so go on out and race to support a great cause! Individuals race against the clock for the best of two runs. Top three challengers in both men’s and womens’ age divisions win cool stuff.

Hawksnest – 23° – They have 10 of 12 trails open on Sunday with 6 lanes of tubing and even though they don’t have their terrain park setup open, they do have some snow hits around the mountain and word is as soon as the races wrap up today, Hawksnest will begin getting the terrain features setup on Sock em Dog. Don’t forget that the second day of the Collegiate races are taking place up there today.

Ski Beech – 20° – They still have 13 of 15 trails open, including the Oz Run and the new, Red Baron Terrain Park. We really haven’t heard any raves about the terrain park as yet, and that is a bit unusual. Typically when the park dudes find something new they’ll write us like crazy. We’ll have to try to get some comments on the new park. There is a Crescent Ski Council ski race is on Robbins Run today.

Sugar Mountain – 19.7° – They are open with 19 of 20 trails, tubing, ice skating and NO snowmaking during ski sessions today although they DID make snow overnight. Conditions will be awesome today on a great base with groomed surface conditions.

<Wolf’s SlopeSyle Comp – more images coming!

Wolf Ridge – 26° – They now have 16 of 20 trails open and tubing and terrain park as well! Justin Blythe wrote to share the results from the SlopeStyle Comp held their on Saturday. The results as follows:

Slope-Style Competition Results
January 26th 2008
Wolf Ridge Ski Resort

Advanced Snowboard Points
1st Orion Hunt 45
2nd Kristopher Mueller 42
2nd Brian Castor 42
3rd Luke Sutton 40
4th Ben Peirson 38
5th Cameron Snyder 35
6th Abby Canto 34
7th Jamie Overcash 33
7th Andrew Mills 33
8th Matt Hollingsworth 32
8th Stephen Mundy 32
9th Jackson Young 31
9th Seth McCurry 31
10th Rich Bowan 29
11th Andy Jackson 26

Womens Snowboard Points
1st Kelsey Green 36
2nd Lee Wright 34

Advanced Ski Points
1st Danny Wilcox 49
2nd Chase Young 30
3rd Josh Davis 29
4th Logan Turrn 17
5th Stephen Lack 12
Slope-Style Competition Results
January 26th 2008
Wolf Ridge Ski Resort

Intermediate Snowboard Points
1st Jacob Sutton 45
2nd Kyle Rediske 38
3rd Sean Panella 37
4th Jeremy Molloy 35
4th Michael Ray 35
5th Lane Stith 32
6th Ethan Peverail 28
7th Adam Johnson 27
8th Brandon Hampton 25
9th Chris Burns 22
10th Chase Green 21
11th Gabby Tan 20
12th Tyler Burnett 19
13th Russell Brown 18
13th Matt Pomfre 18
13th Jon Snyder 18
14th Matt Ray 16
14th Brian Bussey 16
15th Brock Snyder 14
16th Stevan Ticknor 10

(Justin promised to get us some more photos to share with you guys as well!)

Get out and enjoy your day and send us some pics and videos!

Until Next time…

Be sure to visit www.SkiSoutheast.com  for more news from the rest of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic ski areas!

Send your snow photos, videos, comments or emails to: [email protected]

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Meimei of Raleigh North Carolina Shares a Quick Trail Report for Massanutten January 21, 2008
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