First the top news story of the morning…
Some resorts are making snow! We were up at the top of Sugar Mountain’s Big Red slope on Thursday afternoon getting the old Big Red Cam reactivated. It’s been down for nearly a year. However it’s back up and viewable! In fact that internet connectivity is so good that we’re going to try and go LIVE VIDEO later today. For now it is sending a large format image nearly every second so it is cooking!
You can view that camera by click here> Sugar Mountain LIVE Web Cam
<Sugar was making snow at 8am this morning
We got the camera reinstalled late in the afternoon and I was at home late last night and popped onto the camera’s page and I was met with a screen of black ice! Sugar had begun making snow AND that snowmaker was aimed right at the camera! We couldn’t see a thing and thought for a moment that we’d had a malfunction. I panned the camera remotely over to the right a bit and cleared the ice on the dome and now we’re at least seeing that Sugar is continuing to make snow right now as of 8am this morning.
SkiBeech is making snow as well!>
Even BETTER news is the fact that Ski Beech was able to crank up the snow guns and they too are making snow. That has already made a huge difference in the way they are looking this morning and that will be SWEET news to President’s Day Weekend travelers! We installed a NEW LIVE CAM up on Beech Mountain, right on the Beech Mountain Parkway up at The Inns of Beech Mountain! We partnered up with Fred Barth up there and that new camera will not only allow us to view the road conditions on the parkway as it approaches the entrance to Ski Beech, it offers some awesome live views of Ski Beech! Fred has upgraded the internet connection up there to allow for 1meg uploads and that should kick in early next week. For now we’re seeing new images every 3 seconds. Then we should be able to go at least every second and possible with LIVE VIDEO feeds!
Check out that LIVE CAM by clicking here> Ski Beech LIVE Web Cam
We invite you guys to visit www.HighCountryWebCams.com as it now has more than 25 webcams pointed at numerous locations all over the region. We have some new cams coming on later today and we’ll announce those as soon as we have them LIVE. We’re working to reactivate some older cams that are down at the moment and once we have all of those running later in the month, we should be able to provide up to 40 live views of the mountains of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic. We’ve been seeing an average of 22,000 unique visitors a day on that site and we invite YOU to check those out.
As we predicted Wednesday and again on Thursday – we thought that temperatures were going to be borderline for any other ski area to make snow and that is the case. Only Sugar and Beech were cold enough to do so. The rest look well groomed and they are in good shape for the long, holiday weekend.
Sugar and Ski Beech are both in the upper 20s this morning. Everybody else is in the low and mid 30s. It’s chilly out and that is good for allowing the snow to setup and be in great shape for the weekend. If you’re headed this way for a ski getaway – it will be a very nice one!
Meteorologist Matthew East has posted his latest Skier’s Forecast and after some light drizzle leaves out Saturday early – the rest of the weekend looks sweet. He’s forecasting a sunny day today and a bit milder than normal. Saturday light drizzle but that clears out early in the day and then he’s calling for a sunny weekend with some Sunday afternoon and evening snow showers (light) and then a beautiful day on Monday. Highs should be around normal for the weekend with below normal temps for Monday.
There’s still some chances for snow in the mix for Thursday of next week and also some colder temperatures and that bodes well for snowmaking opportunities for the ski resorts as well. It looks like there could be a little snowmaking Saturday night and definately Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights. Thursday is looking very cold and snowy with more snowmaking ops and THAT should set things up nicely for an even SWEETER ski weekend for the weekend of February 20th and 21st.
<Click on the link and Join the Messageboard, Join Us for some turns at Ski Beech next Saturday, February 21st and ski for ONE-HALF the price!
That is ALSO the weekend that we have the SkiNC/SkiBeech Summit planned. We are up to 108 people who are committed to attend and the weather is setting up great for what should be FUN event. We’ll shore up some plans early next week, but suffice to say that it will be a blast and if you have not made plans to attend, join the messageboard today (it’s FREE) and you can come join us for a huge gathering at Ski Beech next Saturday and ski or ride for HALF THE PRICE for an all day ticket!
Visit the Summit page for more details or cruise over the messageboard and see what some of the guys and gals are saying. Sounds like a fun time with family and friends. Meet some new friends and hookup with some old ones!
The conditions are looking very nice today! There is some snow in the forecast and this is a long weekend! Come on up and enjoy the fun this weekend AND MAKE PLANS TO SKI OR RIDE WITH US NEXT SATURDAY at SkiBeech!
Until Next Time…
Go check the SLOPE CONDITIONS page for all the details and you can also Check out the conditions at all of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic Ski areas over on www.SkiSoutheast.com .
Send your comments, photos, videos and trip reports to: [email protected]