More Snow Fell, More is Forecasted and Conditions are AWESOME!

First Trax

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We’ll get right to the quick tour in a moment, but suffice to say that snow lovers are all smiles this morning after anywhere from 3-8" of snow fell across the state over the last 48 hours. It is snowing now although the skies are kind of brightening up. According to forecasters, we’re expecting more snow today and this evening. The WORD IS POWDER for today as that word is in all of the reports this morning! Some resorts also made snow and the word we just heard from Ryan Costin over at Ski Beech is that they will open White Lightning on Wednesday! They were really blasting that trail yesterday!

We share the resort’s reported base depths in our tour, but you’ll notice that we have re-implemented our "Base Legend" for reporting surface depths and conditions. Everyone gets a TEN today as base depth numbers are WAY UP THERE across the board. There IS a lot of snow out on the slopes and conditions are as good as they can get – hence the TENS. If we get the "storm of the century" type snows during the season – we’ll have to rate those up a bit, but the bottom line is that all of the ski areas look AWESOME right now. With the existing weather patterns they will continue to be in GREAT shape for the coming weeks.

There is another Winter Storm Warning posted for much of the mountains and some of the higher snowfall totals may fall over towards Cataloochee, Wolf Ridge and even the Sapphire Valley area today and this evening with as much as 4-7 inches forecasted.

The week ahead looks great with highs in the teens today, getting to perhaps the upper 20s on Wednesday, near 40° on Thursday, the mid 40s on Friday and all with sunny skies each day! The overnight lows will in the 10° range tonight, mid teens Wednesday night, mid 20s Thursday night and low to mid 30s Friday night. So Friday night COULD BE the "warmest" that it has been in a couple of weeks and that night will be a borderline snowmaking night for the resorts that simply want to make snow. None of the resorts will NEED to make snow as base depths are huge and conditions are awesome everywhere.

By the way SNOW re-enters the forecast next weekend so it looks like the great weather trend continues!

Don’t forget that Ski Beech brings back WINTERFEST next weekend with a bathing beauty contest, cardboard box derby and more. The forecast is for highs in the mid 30s with lows in the low 20s, pink-to-red (exposed) skin and lots of fun!

BEST EVER? BEST IN THREE SEASONS? W-H-A-T-E-V-E-R it was a great MLK Weekend Crowd!

This past weekend will unquestionably go down as THE BEST MLK WEEKEND as far as everything that we’d all use as qualifiers. The quality of snow – was awesome. The weather – awesome. The crowds – massive (but awesome if you’re a bean counter at the resorts!)

It may have been a record skier visit day for many ski areas, but regardless, it was a phenomenal one that saw great conditions on Friday, better conditions Saturday and Sunday – and if you were one of the ones who stuck around a little later on Monday – it was near EPIC!

HERE’S THE TOUR SUMMARY FOR TODAY:

Appalachian – 2" of snow and 12° overnight. They have a base of 82-108" and that is off the charts within our Base Report Legend. We’re simply giving them a 10 which is as good as it gets. They are 100% open and conditions are awesome with packed powder!

Cataloochee – 2" of snow and 6° overnight. They are reporting a base of 48-85" and we rate it a 10! They are open for day and night sessions with 100% of their terrain. Snow tubing is closed until Tuesday now. Cataloochee falls within the area that may get significantly more snow than the rest of us in the state this afternoon. We’ll update you when we hear from them.

Ski Beech – It’s a COLD one again this morning atop Beech Mountain with a low of 2° and they are reporting 7-8" at the Beech Mountain Police Station according to Wendy and Gary over there. The official snow reporting station up there has not reported in this morning so we’re not certain what the official total is, but after being up there on Monday there was a good 6" or so most everywhere around 6pm yesterday. So we’re thinking there’s a strong chance that the higher peaks around Beech probably have a good 8" of new snow in the last 48 hours. That will make for yet another POW POW day at Ski Beech for those lucky enough to hit it today. They have 9 of 15 trails open and some nice terrain features over on the Play Yard side of the hill.

I. my family and five office staffers and friends hit up Ski Beech on Monday afternoon and evening – and all I can say is that everyone was smiling. There was a moderate to heavy snow falling all day and at times what several of us were calling a "SNOG" (kind of a snowy fog) that kept visibility of the surface – low. Once that cleared around 3pm or so, man was it nice carving that snow!

We’ll elaborate more later, but I have to quickly add that seeing Ski Beech on Monday – it is so obvious that they are really working to make a lot of positive changes up there! All of the buildings at the base looked so much nicer than a couple of years ago with new siding; bathrooms all had a fresh coat of paint and you just got the feel that Beech was getting a lot of TLC these days. By the way the cafeteria is serving up some GREAT, homemade chili and yesterday they were serving up some italian dishes, tasty burgers, barbeque and more.

We want to give a special shout out to Ryan Costin, Ryan Garris, Jeb Brown and some others who showed us great hospitality on Monday. Jeb I got your message and even though I didn’t take you up on your offer – it was cool to do so.

Don’t forget that Beech brings back WINTERFEST this weekend with the old Cardboard Box Derby and Bathing Beauty Contest so if you have not played at "The Beech" lately – maybe this week would be a great time to do so.

CHECK OUT THE MLK SUMMARY VIDEO!

We shot some video on Saturday and again on Monday over at Sugar and then gave Beech most of our attention and that video can be viewed by clicking below or on the front page VIDEO LINK.

Ski Beech Video 

Sugar Mountain – They are reporting a little more snow than the Sugar Mountain Police Station is reporting. After reporting 2-3" on Monday morning, they are telling us that they have a total of 6-7" this morning! That gives Sugar 37" of snow on the season which already surpasses the 35" that Sugar got all of last season. They are within 2" of the 2006-2007 total and nearly half of the normal 78" that Sugar Mountain received annually. AND WE HAVE THE REST OF JANUARY, FEBRUARY AND MARCH TO GO!

Sugar goes to 100% open today as they now offer 20 of 20 trails, powder conditions, tubing and ice skating. It will be an awesome day on the slopes at Sugar!

Wolf Ridge Resort is a cold 6° this morning at 8:50am and they reported 3-4" of snow in the last 72 hours! They are in the path of what forecasters are saying may be more significant snowfall today and Wolf Ridge has received 25" on the season thus far. They offer 10 trails open today and report, "We have had over 3 to 4 inches of snow in the last 72 hours and the slopes are in great shape. We are presently making snow on The Howling,Powder Hill,View Finder, Whistling Dixie,the Ridge,and Broadway! Look for more terrain to open later this week!"

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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