It’s m-e-l-t-i-n-g….
Tuesday saw record high temperatures for April 6th. We’ll see temps that should be close to records highs again today and then believe it or not, we could see lows in the 29° to 30° range Friday night and into Saturday night.
Good grief!
The previous high temperature for Boone and Blowing Rock was an 80° temp back in 1967 and yesterday’s 84° shattered that. It also caused enough snow melt that Appalachian Ski Mountain dropped their base depth from Tuesday morning’s 20-49" base report to 16-40" this morning. There’s plenty of soft, skiable terrain available today, but even App is now showing some shrinking or narrowing of their slopes as the sides creep in. With five days left in the 2009-2010 ski and snowboarding season it looks like things will be perfectly timed to call it quits after Sunday’s day sessions.
AppalTop, one of App’s three terrain parks and the newest of the Freestyle Terrain parks is now closed, bringing Appalachian Ski Mountains offerings today to 9 of 11 trails.
I was listening to John Huffman of Fred’s Mercantile up on Beech Mountain this morning and he said that they felt "pretty warm" even atop the 5,000+ foot elevations on Tuesday as temps soared to near 80°. Beech rarely gets to the upper 70s even in the midst of July, but they saw temps reach 78° on Tuesday and that broke the all-time record high for the month of April!
Grandfather spokesperson Landis Wofford said the previous monthly record up there was 76 degrees and that was set on April 25 and 26 of last year. They hit 78° on Tuesday.
…and we could see 29° readings on Friday. Welcome to the mountains of the High Country… There’s a hint of some light flurries at our highest elevations Friday night. I know that I speak for even the most ardent snow-loving peeps amongst our readership when I say that I really hope the snow stays away and that our lows Friday night and Saturday stay above freezing if for no other reason that to protect the newly blooming flowering plants.
There’s no place prettier on earth than the mountains with all of the blooms and wildflowers sprouting everywhere. We don’t need no stinkin’ freeze.
The long range forecast is for milder and drier air to filter back into the area after the weekend.
We’re on day 132 and there are 5 more days of opportunities to enjoy the snow for the 2009-2010 ski and snowboarding season!
YOU GUYS ARE STILL COMING TO THE SITE…
Thanks to Appalachian and Cataloochee I’m still working, posting daily input about "what’s happening" right up through Sunday, April 11th – which is the latest that I’ve posted daily, FirsTrax news. However a quick check of our Urchin stats package this morning shows that 3699 of you visited the website on Tuesday and you looked at 36,738 pages!
…on a ski and snowboarding website.
…on April 7th.
…again…good grief!
Our www.GolfNorthCarolina.com website actually just matched our ski traffic over the last couple of days. There’s a sure sign that all but about 4000 of you are thinking about things other than skiing.
Speaking of traffic, our www.HighCountryWebcams.com is still receiving a lot of daily traffic from mountain lovers around the southeast and mid Atlantic. March saw 206,363 unique visitors and we’ve already seen 22,000 visitors in the first days of April. We’re adding several new camera locations with two going in over at Watauga Lake within the next few days. We’re activated a camera at a campground in Marion within a couple of days and we’re working on more locations daily. We’re attempting to acquire the perfect location for Main Street in Blowing Rock as well and we’ll make those announcements as we get those LIVE.
…and yes, some of the ski cams are now offline until November.
DON’T FORGET THAT APPALACHIAN IS HOSTING THE MELTDOWN GAMES THIS WEEKEND!
Here’s the schedule:
Appalachian’s classic end of the winter celebration is taking place later than ever before, on Saturday, April 10 & Sunday, April 11, 2010. A full weekend of crazy events you won’t see any other time of the year, with lots of snow, sun, and skin.
All events are free with your ski ticket. Take your best shot at tons of prize categories. Thanks to all the event sponsors who made these games possible: Skullcandy, Atomic, Red Bull, Burton, Forum, Smith Optics, Salomon, Spyder, 686, Rip Curl, Nordica, Volcom, Electric, Roxy, Dragon, Mental, Dakine, Line, 686, Rossignol, Spy, Bern, Screamer, Wigwam, Seirus, Kombi, POW, and Chaos.
Here’s the latest schedule of activities and fun:
09-10 Winter Meltdown Games Schedule:
Saturday, April 10
-10:30am –The Impossible Box Contest
-11:30am -Cardboard Box Derby
-4:00pm – Trash Bag Downhill Race
Sunday, April 11
-10:30am – High Ollie Contest
-1:00pm – Ski and Snowboard Big Air
-4:00pm – Chinese Downhill
09-10 Meltdown Games Prize Categories:
The Impossible Box Contest:
-12 and Under Best Grind (Snowboard)
-12 and Under Best Grind (Ski)
-13 and Over Best Grind (Ski)
-13 and Over Best Grind (Snowboard)
Cardboard Box Derby:
-Most Original Box Design
-Fastest Box
Big Air:
-Intermediate Ski 1st
-Intermediate Ski 2nd
-Intermediate Ski 3rd
-Intermediate Snowboard 1st
-Intermediate Snowboard 2nd
-Intermediate Snowboard 3rd
-Advanced Ski 1st
-Advanced Ski 2nd
-Advanced Ski 3rd
-Advanced Snowboard 1st
-Advanced Snowboard 2nd
-Advanced Snowboard 3rd
-Womens Ski 1st
-Womens Ski 2nd
-Womens Ski 3rd
-Womens Snowboard 1st
-Womens Snowboard 2nd
-Womens Snowboard 3rd
Trash Bag Downhill:
-12 and Under Fastest Finish
-13 and Over Fastest Finish
High Ollie:
-12 and Under 1st
-12 and Under 2nd
-12 and Under 3rd
-13 and Over 1st
-13 and Over 2nd
-13 and Over 3rd
Chinese Downhill
-12 and Under Fastest Finish
-13 and Over Fastest Finish
Go enjoy the snow! Check out the Snow Report at https://www.skisoutheast.com/skireports.php and please send us your favorite ski photos, ski videos, trip reports and comments to
[email protected]