If you don’t know what the heck the title of this post is about, just read Thursday morning’s post by clicking on the link at the bottom of this post.
The quick summary is that one of our readers sent us a clever bit of input and we twisted it around with our insight and predicted that a few ski resorts would be “rethinking” remaining open as long as their previously announced dates.
We got word a couple of hours ago from Gil Adams up at Ski Beech that they were indeed moving their season-ending date up to this Sunday, March 15th. Moments ago Laura Parquette of Snowshoe Mountain called to inform me that they were moving their date of closing for the ski season up to Sunday, March 22nd. They had previously set a tentative date of March 29th as a closing date.
In both cases, their reps stated that the reason was simply that “in a effort to provide only the best of conditions and product they felt it best to close a week earlier than first expected.”
In both cases – Beech and Snowshoe – they will provide pretty good conditions for their remaining days of operations. Snowshoe is making snow tonight and with some additional natural snow that is forecasted they will provide what should be a pretty nice bit of conditions for the remaining ten days of their 2008-2009 season. Beech has a little less to work with in terms of conditions right now, but they still have plenty of good, skiable terrain and slopes to offer a fun time for the last three days of their season.
Don’t be surprised if you see more announcements like this over the next few days as resorts move to maximize what has been a very good season. As one reader emailed today, “It’s almost as if Mother Nature just flipped a switch and said “that’s it, I’m done with Winter””.
We’re still getting signals from some ski areas that they are planning to ride until sometime in April, but from what we’re seeing out there, I don’t know about that. I guess Appalachian could ski until June if they wanted, but other than them I don’t know. It’s looking a little “thin” around the region.
Hat’s off to Ski Beech and Snowshoe for making the call to maximize the skier’s experience. I know we’ll get email from some claiming that they were only thinking about maximizing their profits and YES I’d bet that entered into the equation – but you guys should WANT ski areas to maximize their profits because that is what affords them the ability to make improvements, etc. I don’t think anyone wants our favorite ski hill to operate with a thread of profit. That kind of fragile existence has closed some ski areas in the past – never to reopen.
Until tomorrow….
Send your comments to: [email protected]
Here’s the link to this morning’s story including the Nostradamus reference.