After the last couple of days of receiving a bunch of negative posts, and then posting Joe Knows Snow, and our own semi negative addresses over the last couple of mornings, I fully expected to receive a fair amount of emails from you guys – admonishing us for getting caught up in the negativity. To our surprise we received NOT ONE. In fact, just the opposite happened! We received numerous complimentary emails like this one from Randall Pigford of Wallace, North Carolina. Randall wrote, “First of all, just wanted to say how awesome I think your site is! I’ve been using the site since I was a freshman in college. (I am about to graduate, so that’s 4 years now). I and my friends are have a snowboarding trip planned to Winterplace Jan. 5-8th. I read the info on the site everyday and I love how positive you guys are when it comes to the weather. In closing, I’ll continue to think cold and think snow!”
How cool is that? Thanks Randall…of course thanks to the others of you who took time out of your busy day to express like thoughts.
Check the Slope Conditions page for the details on today’s resort offerings. Here’s some additional notes from around the region.
We mentioned Appalachian’s new Terrain Park Website yesterday. It is now live and online at www.AppTerrainPark.com You guys know that we’re not into marketing-speak around here; we call a spade a spade. We receive promotional emails from all over, wherein this or that resort will make claims such as, “We have the longest, biggest, baddest, cleanest, whatever-est this or that in the state, region, U.S. etc.” Several resorts lay claim to having great terrain parks, and if those are great, then App’s is just quite simply greater. Look, I’m a fan of every resort in this region; otherwise I would not have created this website eleven seasons ago. However, you have to give credit where credit is due: App’s Terrain Park is number one in this region. …and now App’s Terrain Park website is number one. That’s funny too because Appalachian was the last ski resort in North Carolina to allow snowboarders on their hill…and one of the last in the Southeast and Mid Atlantic to do so. Just eight years ago, snowboarders weren’t even welcomed at Appalachian and now since 1999 they have done increasingly more and more to attract boarders.
Much like App’s being the last to allow snowboarding, App was also among the last to realize the value of a top notch website. For several years, their website was among the worst in the region. Now, they not only have the best terrain park, they have among the best ski websites and what HAS to be the best terrain park website in the region…if not the U.S. The website features the obligatory promotional content, but the photo gallery, live cam and the 3D renderings of all of their features is way cool. Congrats to Drew Stanley, Chris Reynolds, Brad Moretz and the rest of the crew on a job well done.
Whether you’re ready to hit some sweet bumps, grind on a rail or just into watching some athletic craziness…do yourself a favor and pay a visit to Appalachian this season.
More Tweaks…
Yesterday we were in “catch up mode” posting tons of your photos that have been submitted to us within the last week. We got around to a lot of information and photos and we’ll be finishing up on those today. Along with those postings, we continue to make some tweaks to the websites to make them more user friendly and as equitable as possible to all of our participating resorts. You may have noticed another change that took effect on Wednesday. We have re-ordered the positioning of all of the resorts on the daily slope conditions page. We’re not certain WHY we had not noticed it before but we had positioned Maryland (which begins with an “m”) at the bottom of the list, instead of where it rightfully should have been in the beginning. We’re thinking that years ago when we created the page that we probably just duplicated what was being done on the Southeastern Ski Areas Association (SSAA) page. (Not sure WHY we made that mistake!) However, in every dictionary ‘M’ comes before “N, T, V and WV”. Therefore, you’ll notice that we have rectified that. We’re not certain why the SSAA continues to list them in the order that they do, but that’s there problem.
So congrats to Maryland’s Wisp Resort at Deep Creek for getting listed where you should have been all along! I know we’ll probably catch some playful grief from Alabama’s Cloudmont Ski Area (and it handful of fans) for not moving Alabama to the top (after all ‘A’ does come first) but we’re going to have to stay with Alabama’s lone ski area being shown last on the daily list of slope conditions. Hey, AT LEAST WE INCLUDE THEM! Most reporting services, including the SSAA, don’t even recognize Cloudmont.
Speaking of the SSAA – We have received at least four or five emails a day, everyday, from those of you who want to bring it to our attention that the SSAA report has errors on it. In some cases, you question whether we or the SSAA report is accurate. Some others send us comparisons with other reporting services based north of us, etc. We thank you for your continued pats on the back, and all that we can tell you is that we get our reports straight from the source and not through some errored service.
This morning we received an email from someone bringing it to our attention that the SSAA, and another regional website has Cataloochee’s base depth wrong; Sugar’s trail count wrong and Wolf Laurel Closed…and that’s JUST the report for North Carolina resorts. Sugar has nine slopes open, not eight and Wolf Laurel certainly IS open and in fact they are even open for night skiing.
Other inaccuracies reported are:
Bryce has 3 trails open – not 4.
Snowshoe has Wet Granular conditions not Wet Snow
Winterplace has Groomed not Packed Powder
Ober Gatlinburg has 18-26” base not 20-28
Thanks to David Strickland for emailing us those this morning…and to the many who email everyday. You know who you are!
So WHERE should you be looking for accurate slope conditions EVERY DAY!!!??? That’s right – pass the word!
Snow Only Melts at Sugar, Snowshoe and Ober Gatlinburg!?
In the “we’re not checking our morning snow” department – none of the other resorts across the Southeast and Mid Atlantic are reporting any drop in base depth for the last few days. Only Sugar Mountain (way to go Gunther!), Snowshoe (my lady Andrea) and Ober (hats off to Kathy Doyle) have reported any drops in the last 24 hours. Snow depth DOES fluctuate guys and gals…and not just upward when the guns are blasting. (We should have had Joe Stevens add this to his Christmas wish list!)
Photos from a week ago???!!!
We received a couple of emails from you guys telling us (or asking in some cases) why you saw some photos from last week making their way onto the front of SkiNC and SkiSoutheast yesterday. WE TOLD YOU we were catching up! We’ll be up to date later on Thursday but we had so much to do over the last few days that we missed some great photo submissions and wanted to get them into the galleries of each resort. For those who don’t know, you can click on any ski resort link on the front of our website, then click on Photos of the Day and see images for that resort. It’s a great way to “get acquainted” with all of the resorts and a nice way to see the season at a glance…in terms of snow, etc.
That’s it for today…in the meantime…THINK COLD – THINK SNOW!
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For more information about the ski resorts of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic visit www.SkiSoutheast.com
REMEMBER TO VIEW ARCHIVED ARTICLES IN CASE YOU MISSED A STORY POSTED EARLIER TODAY!