THE 1st ANNUAL SKISOUTHEAST.COM SUMMIT STARTS FRIDAY!! MAKE PLANS TO JOIN US AT SNOWSHOE MOUNTAIN THIS WEEKEND! (It’s not too late to join us and we’re still adding names to the list and we’ll update that in a bit…but we’re close to 120 people who are planning on hanging out with us this weekend at Snowshoe.)
You can get $100 off any on-mountain lodging, and join us for a group photo on Saturday morning and make some turns with fellow readers and messageboard bloggers. All summit attendees are invited to a FREE Wings Après-ski Party at Moonshine in the Shavers Center from 4-7pm. We’ll be giving away a bunch of the brand new SkiSoutheast.com Hoodies, what’s left of the SkiNC hoodies and some stickers as well (as long as the supplies last).
Plus ALL ATTENDEES will be given a FREE lift ticket to ski Sunday!
We’ll also be doing some first tracks on Sunday morning compliments of Snowshoe’s President and COO, Bill Rock and crew.
MANY of the most frequent messageboard bloggers will be there including the top dog TeleDave, jbc26, Mellow Yellow and others will also be there as well as some of the newer, most active members such as TheGnar.
Click here to Join Us for All of the Fun of Spring Break and/or the SkiSoutheast.com Summit Weekend!
Here’s the tour this morning…
WEST VIRGINIA SKI AREAS NEWS:
Canaan Valley – We got their faxed report this morning at 4am and they had 24° and didn’t report any snowfall, but our columnist Joe Stevens was over there and said that it snowed really most all day on Wednesday and that conditions were amazing compared from the day before when all of the rain wreaked havoc. They have 16 trails open today.
Snowshoe Mountain – They were right on the fringe of being able to make snow last night but it didn’t happen. The temps did drop enough to firm up their base and they used that opportunity to do some snow maintenance and they have 58 trails open for today with Loose granular and groomed conditions.
They have some light rain in the forecast for Friday afternoon and night, but that is forecasted to change over to snow Saturday early in the morning Saturday and it should be a nice weekend.
Timberline Resort reported one-half of snow (So we’ll assume Canaan got that as well) and they have 27 trails open for today.
Winterplace Resort – They have operated at 100% for some time now and nothing is different today! They have Granular and Loose Granular conditions on 28 trails with snow in the forecast for this weekend.
Wisp Resort – They have 28 trails is great shape for today; three of four terrain parks open, their popular tubing park and the mountain coaster is open as well.
VIRGINIA SKI AREAS NEWS:
Bryce Resort has dropped two trails from their open terrain. They shut down White Lightning and the only black diamond (Hangover) and now offer 6 trails for today.
Massanutten Resort still has really good conditions with 11 trails and their snow tubing hill open with 7 lanes of fun!
Wintergreen Resort has 15 slopes open today and The Plunge Tubing Park. They announced their schedule for the rest of the season today. They advised us that they’d be open until March 30th, weather permitting, but their schedule suggests that March 23rd may be their last day.
March operating schedule for skiing & riding:.
March 6: 9:00 AM-10:00 PM
March 7-8: 9:00 AM-11:00 PM
March 9: 9:00 AM-10:00 PM
March 10-13: 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM
March 14-15: 9:00 AM – 11:00 PM
March 16: 9:00 AM – 10:00 PM
March 17-20: 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM
March 21-22: 9:00 AM – 11:00 PM
March 23: 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM (Easter Sunday)
TENNESSEE SKI AREA NEWS
One of the cold spots in the region this morning was the 31° we found at Ober Gatlinburg. They are closing for the season on Sunday so there was no snowmaking, and they have 5 trails open from noon til 10pm today.
NORTH CAROLINA SKI RESORT NEWS:
WHAT A GLORIOUSLY B-E-A-U-T-F-U-L DAY IT IS!!! The sun was brilliant this morning and the skies were about as blue as I have seen them in a while. Frost was heavy on the rhododendron (and on my windshield!) and the air was just the right kind of cold. What a morning.
Temps around the area are pretty diverse this morning with a low of 25° here at my office and yet just up the hill, less than 10 minutes from here on top of Seven Devils (Hawksnest) the current temp is 39.9° and the low was only 36°. Over at Appalachian Ski Mountain in Blowing Rock, the low only dipped to 37°. Maggie Valley, home to Cataloochee Ski Area is at 27° but it was not quite that cold up at the ski area so they, nor any of the other ski areas in the state made snow.
We’ve detailed the particulars below, but the summary is that the best skiing in the state will be at Appalachian and Sugar Mountain today. Cataloochee and Ski Beech also are in pretty good shape. Hawksnest and Wolf Ridge are closed for the day and hope to reopen for the weekend.
Appalachian Ski Mountain – They made snow Wednesday AM and have groomed this morning and really looks perfect for the taking…with skis and snowboards that is! They are 100% open with both terrain parks, ice skating and primo conditions for Thursday.
Cataloochee Ski Area – They made snow overnight and have done some sweet grooming already this morning. They open today at 1pm with 8 trails.
Hawksnest Ski Resort – They were not able to make snow last night and things still look sketchy up there. Lenny Cottom dropped by the office on Tuesday morning when the heavy rain was falling and they had closed for the day. At that time they planned to reopen Wednesday, then postponed reopening until today…and now have made the call to delay reopening until Friday at 12:30PM for skiing and snowboarding. Snow tubing will open at 1pm Friday. They made some snow Wednesday AM, but not enough…
The forecast does not look good for any of the ski areas to make snow until Saturday night when temps are forecasted to drop into the teens. Unfortunately there’s also some light rain in the High Country forecast so we’ll see how things go for the resorts that are pretty thin right now.
Ski Beech – They were able to make snow Wednesday morning and that helped things considerably and although they have some thin coverage areas and bare spots, they actually look in pretty good shape this morning. They did not groom as far as we can tell, and with temps going up to 57° today, the snow should be soft and very nice at Beech Mountain today. They have 8 trails, including the terrain park, and ice skating is open today as well.
Beech could definately use some snowmaking…but again it appears that Saturday night is when that will happen.
Sugar Mountain – They’ve done some sweet grooming already this morning and you can really see that on the Sugar top web cam this morning atop the Big Red trail. Sugar has 18 trails open, terrain park, snow tubing and ice skating as well. They probably have a spot or two (around trail merge areas) that is a bit thin, but really Sugar is in great shape heading into the weekend.
Wolf Ridge – The weather station up there is showing 38.9° this morning and that is obviously not cold enough to make snow. Wolf has been closed all week with a hint that they would reopen for this weekend IF weather permits. That is in doubt. Stay tuned for updates.
Until Next time…
Be sure to visit www.SkiSoutheast.com for more news from the rest of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic ski areas!
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