Happy St. Paddy’s Day Everyone!
It should be a wonderful day of skiing and riding today and Tuesday. Highs today should be in the 50s both days and it looks like we’re in for some mid week rain showers on Wednesday. We need the rain but the ski areas are trying to make it through the end of the month and they are already showing signs of "end-of-the-season Spring Conditions".
Appalachian and Cataloochee have stated that they will make snow right up until the last couple of days of the season. They may get their chance on Thursday and Friday evening as temps are expected to drop into the 20s.
<Appalachian Looks Great the AM!
Right now we’re seeing some great conditions no matter if we were looking at them in early January or right now in mid March at Appalachian Ski Mountain. They look very inviting with 100% of their terrain (10) Trails, both terrain parks and ice skating open. In fact they look so good, I think I’ll be over there this afternoon! I’ll be wearing one of the new SkiSoutheast.com Hoodies if you want to look me up.
Appalachian Ski Mountain did not make snow last night.
Cataloochee Ski Area – They report that they DID make snow last night and Tammy Brown, Cat’s Marketing Director, writes, "We will continue to make snow as long as temperatures permit throughout the month and we have great coverage and plenty of snow which should allow us to ski and ride throughout the rest of the month."
It is due to that statement that we had reported that Cataloochee would close up for the season on March 30th. Evidently that is not the case as Tammy wrote me yesterday that they are in fact planning to stay open until April 6th if the weather cooperates!
They are open during the week this week from 1pm-10pm today through Friday. They have 6 trails open today and they too look darn nice.
Hawksnest Resort – They closed for the season after tubing only for this past week. Justin Grimes writes, "Thanks Skiers, Snowboarders, and Snowtubers! Many thanks to all of you who visited Hawksnest making this a very successful season! Please stay tuned to this site for updates on the improvements we have planned and progress on our expansion for next season.
<This shot views Hawksnest’s beginning terrain from above, and more importantly, it gives us a glimpse of what their hoped for expansion would look like. Imagine skiing those intermediate groomers you see in the distance of this photo.
Photo by John Jarrett
Sugar Mountain – They are reporting a low of 24° on the summit weather station and 28° on the base station but did not make snow. They have plenty of base, but are reporting a minimum base of 11". One look at the right side of their slopes shows some DEEP base (they are reporting a maximum depth of 59" so they have plenty of snow to make it til then end of the month. As far as we can see there are no thin coverage areas to speak of and they are offering some great Spring conditions for today on 13 trails. They have closed their tubing, terrain park and ice skating rink for the season.
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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