The Calendar Says it’s Thanksgiving Day, but the Snow Report Looks Wintry! (The photo above is from Wisp Resort in Garrett County, Maryland from Wednesday. Thanks Lori!)
The talk of the last 24 hours across our entire coverage area has been what an awesome opening day or Thanksgiving weekend it is as UP TO 16″ or so of new snow has fallen in the last 48 hours. Find out where later in this post.
Here’s an interesting tidbit of news for you: It’s N-O-V-E-M-B-E-R 27th and Cataloochee Ski Area has been open every single day since opening November 2nd. (Sugar opened on the same day but they were forced to close one day with subpar snow coverage.) So both of those resorts have now been operating for 25 days and in case you’re just joining us for the new season, Sugar Mountain, Beech Mountain Resort, Canaan Valley, Timberline and Snowshoe Mountain have ALL seen at LEAST 18″ of snowfall on the new season! Canaan and Timberline are now at 23″ of snow on the season!
…and we’re not even to December just yet.
It’s long been an industry bit of inside information that ANY skier (snowboarder) visits prior to the Christmas to New Year’s Holiday week are a bonus. It’s safe to say that Sugar, Cat, Appalachian Ski Mountain (who opened this past weekend) and Bryce Resort have all picked up some bonus skiers and snowboarders.
Snowshoe Mountain celebrated their opening day on Wednesday and one look at the official rope drop video will show you a HUGE crowd and awesome snow conditions.
Krysty Ronchetti, one of Snowshoe’s Media peeps, shared, “Happy Opening Day from Snowshoe Mountain, WV – We have received 9” of snow so far in the past 24 hours and it’s still coming down here!”
The video is a RAW FEED, 6m long vid that we did nothing with (except post) but it’s definately worth a view. Check it out:
SNOWSHOE
THANKFUL FOR LOTS OF THINGS…
Thanksgiving Weekend is kind of the unofficial, official, traditional opening “day” for each ski season even though Sugar and Cataloochee have sort of destroyed that idea over the last few years. I’ll admit that it’s GREAT for the entire ski industry for those two to “duke it out” and open first annually. However, it’s equally strange to be thinking of skiing around the same time that you’re taking down Halloween decorations. Some of the younger peeps in my family had barely washed off the grease paint from their Halloween faces when those two ski areas opened.
Heck the fall leaves hadn’t even finished falling yet…
But here we are at Thanksgiving and what a fantastic way to kick off “the real season” with tons of snow and great conditions at every resort that chooses to already be open.
Conditions are so good that Canaan Valley decided to open THIS SATURDAY and one look at their LIVE WEBCAM will tell you that they will be open with mid-season conditions! Canaan Valley LIVE CAM!
Here’s a list of the resorts OPEN NOW…
Appalachian Ski Mountain
Bryce Resort – actually ONLY OPEN for members and season pass holders today (pretty cool)
Cataloochee Ski Area
Sugar Mountain Resort
Snowshoe Mountain
Many are opening this weekend and I’ll get to those on Friday morning’s report…
SNOW AND HOW MUCH OF IT…
The first number is 24 hour snow and the second is since October 31st:
The big winner from this storm is Canaan Valley and Timberline in Davis, WV where 8.3″ have fallen in the last 24 hours, 11.5″ from the storm and 23.9″ so far on the season!
Canaan Valley – 11.5″ and 23.9″
Timberline – 11.5″ and 23.9″
Appalachian Ski – 1″ and 4.5″ (Yes this is accurate)
Beech Mountain – 5″ and 18.5″
Bryce Resort – 3″ and 6.5″
Cataloochee Ski – 3″ and 12.5″
Massanutten Resort – 6″ and 9″
Ober Gatlinburg – 1″ and 12″ (Hey Cossaboom can you be a snow reporter over there?)
Sapphire Valley – Trace and 1″
Snowshoe Mtn – 9″ (16″ from the storm) and 16″ on season
Sugar Mountain – 2″ (5″ from the storm) and 18.5″ season
The Homestead – 5″ and 8″
Wintergreen – 6″ and 8″
Winterplace – 4″ and 12″
Wisp Resort – 6.5″ and 12.1″
Wolf Ridge – 1″ and 11″
That will do it for me this morning. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. I hope that you each have much to be thankful for. I do…and among those things…is YOU.
I’ll be up at Beech a bit today and we’ll try to get you some good videos of the snow. Check back later for vids and photos.
WE’D LIKE TO RECRUIT YOU…
First, if you’re already skiing and/or riding at any of our mountains ANYWAY, we’d like to have you send us photos, videos and reports from your experience on the mountain. If you’re good at it and on the snow quite a bit – we’ll probably recruit you to contribute content. Depending on how often you contribute and how good your content is – we may even pay you!
Feel free to email me at [email protected] if you’re interested.
WE STILL NEED YOU GUYS – (Our readers!)
Without YOU, there is no US. If you like this website, we’d really appreciate it if you would take a moment and email or text a few of your friends to check us out at www.SkiSoutheast.com and www.ResortCams.com. If YOU like our website – chances are some of your friends would as well and we’re wanting to spread our wings just a bit and we need YOU to help us get the word out. We saw nearly 5 Million visitors in the last calendar year and we’d love to double that this season.
Thanks in advance!