We could be posting our record LONGEST daily update today as we have a lot to share, some ramblings, some house cleaning and of course a tour of the conditions for today! It is a snow day here as anywhere from TRACE of snow fell at Appalachian to 2" of snow over at Wolf Ridge in the last 24 hours. Snowmaking crews blasted some more snow here and there and the groomers have done their thing so expect awesome – AWESOME conditions across the board today.
MORE SNOW – THE BIG STUFF – IS HEADED OUR WAY!!!
According to the weather gurus out and about – even though we’re seeing sunny skies right now – there is a blizzard coming in this afternoon that will drop anywhere from 2-6-10" of snow depending on the elevations! (We’ll take the 10" or more please!) It will be gusty and snowing hard tonight into Wednesday night but after that look for some EPIC snow at your favorite hill for Thursday through the weekend. Get your rear and your gear packed up and head to the mountains TODAY if you want to play in some good powder later in the week!
(Mom!?!? You’ve been wanting to see snow falling. Now’s your chance! Come on up!)
LET’S DO THE TOUR FIRST and then if you guys want to stick around for some rambling…feel free to read below the quick tour of our ski areas:
Appalachian Ski Mountain – 19° – They received a TRACE of snow. Reported 85-111" base with 100% of their terrain open (10 trails) and both terrain parks – and ice skating. Did not make snow. They don’t need to!
Cataloochee Ski Area – 14° – They reported 1" of new snow at 4:30pm on Monday and flurries continued overnight. They report a base of 42-95" with additional machine made snow. They are 100% open with all 14 trails. Tubing is closed until Thursday.
Ski Beech – 8° – Reporting 1" of new snow and 43" now on the season. They are reporting a base of 35-65" on 11 of 15 trails. We spoke with Ryan Costin on Monday and they have the 3rd pump operating and he said it was amazing how you could tell the difference in the quality of snow being put down. That is great news. He said they were making snow over on Southern Star and anticipate opening that up by the weekend if not sooner. Beech has the terrain park setup on Powder Bowl and ice skating is open as well. They are reporting packed powder and frozen granular conditions for today and tonight.
Ryan wanted us to share that they are hosting their 3rd Rail Jam this weekend, February 7th. It is a "Winners Take All" Jam with three divisions of competition. According to the promo, it will be filmed for "Havoc television" and there will be live performances, djs, graffiti painting on the snow and an after rail jam party. Sounds like a lot of fun!
SKINC / SKIBEECH SUMMIT UPDATE:
If you have been keeping up with the summit planned for Ski Beech on February 21st, we now have 102 people signed up who say that they will be there to ski, ride, eat, drink and hang out with new and old messageboard friends. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, click over to find out more and plan on joining us. This is your chance to ski with some friends and some of our SkiNC crew, Beech management, etc AND do it for one-half the price for that day! All you have to do is be a member of the SkiNC messageboard!
Click here to read more about it!
Also Ryan Costin mentioned that they are 100% behind the idea of generating a good fund raising campaign for the Helena Jolly Educational Fund. He has some ideas that are pretty cool and we’ll share those with you as we have more to go with.
Also for those looking for discounted lodging during that weekend up at Ski Beech. Fred Barth who owns Beech Alpen Inn is offering discounted lodging for those members coming in. All you have to do is click over to www.BeechMountainInns.com and when you’re calling in your reservation mention SkiNC and they will discount your stay. Seems like a lot of people are getting behind this thing!
Sugar Mountain – 7° – They too saw 1" of new snow and now 41" on the season. They are reporting a base of 46-85" and manmade and natural powder / frozen granular conditions. Sugar is 100% open with all 20 trails and in super sweet condition. Tubing is open, ice skating is open and there will be a lot of school kids from around Watauga and Avery County taking advantage of school being out today!
Wolf Ridge Resort – 12° – They are reporting a base of 48-68" and "powder" conditions although they are not reporting any natural snow. That’s okay because we called and they DID get 2" of snow yesterday evening and that takes their total to 31" on the season. They will have 10 trails open today and tubing as well. It should be a great day to be at the Wolf!
Sapphire Valley – No report since the beginning of time. Actually none since January 29th. Call Ahead.
Hawksnest Tubing Park – 10° – They are closed until Thursday.
MORE TO READ – if you’re not bored!
JUST VARIOUS RAMBLINGS…
I was doing some house cleaning of any emails that were still in my INBOX after I THOUGHT we’d gotten to all of them and I noticed one from yesterday that took offense to me not doing a "tour of the resorts" yesterday. For the third time in a few months I was called a "siisy person". What is that anyway!?!?
Once last season I was called a "Keyboard Queen". Twice this season I have been called a "sissy person". Earlier this season some kook thought he’d complain because I didn’t provide a concise enough update (resort by resort). I didn’t do so on Monday. Things are in such great shape at all of the resorts right now it’s kind of like being a weatherman during a stretch of sunny days in a row in the midst of summer. What are you going to say? "It pretty today. It’s sunny. It’s hot." At the ski areas right now, if there are any ski areas that are not in great shape, they are not located in North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia or Maryland. So it kind of becomes easy for us right now. "It’s pretty. It’s snowy. It’s cold." We can almost add, "Every resort is at 100%."
But that is not what I am venting about. Anyone who has met me personally knows that I am a pretty decent sized guy with no feminine tendencies, unless – of course – you count the ability that I have to write as a feminine trait. Now I am not sensitive to being called a "sissy person" (I’m a big boy and I can take it.) but I am seeing a trend here, and I’m not sure I like it. John Edmonds of Legrange, Georgia wrote, "What a crock! So we have to do your job today? You just write your thoughts and tell us to go view the slop reports page? I thought today you stunk. What a sissy person! Do your job!"
Come to think of – this email is eerily similar to the previous "sissy person" email. Maybe I have a stalker! I’ve arrived!
Okay John, first – this isn’t my job – it’s a passion or interest in serving our fan base of fellow skiers and snowboarders who enjoy what we have to offer here in the Southeast. Second, it isn’t "SLOP REPORTS" it is "SLOPE REPORTS" although I had to laugh because I had never once thought that by accidently missing the "E" key when typing "slope" you get "slop"! Now that’s funny as heck because there HAVE been occasions over the years that our ski areas should provide a "SLOP REPORT". That is TOO funny. Thanks for that. Third, John, I might HAVE stunk on Monday. I doubt it but maybe so.
But the "sissy person" thing. Where does that have anything to do with anything? Oh well….
In checking the "slop report" today…things could not be much better at EVERY SKI AREA in the region than they are RIGHT NOW.
DOING MY IMPRESSION OF SOME SKI AREA MARKETING DEPARTMENTS…
It’s snowing and we’ve got great conditions no matter where you want to play today. However, today I’m going to do my impression of some of the ski resorts in this region.
Here it is:
"It’s snowing. We got 2". Come see us."
Here’s another one: (Here’s a hint, it’s written between the brackets)
It is one of my pet peeves when some ski areas simply do nothing to promote themselves. On numerous occasions this season one or more ski areas in our region have gone as many as four days with never updating their own website, the Nc Ski Areas, the SSAA, us or anyone else. The information that we have, for example, for The Homestead Resort in Virginia is more than a week old. By the way that is the same information that you’ll find from any other resource as well. Why? Because they don’t tell anybody what’s going on! We have two ski areas located in North Carolina that routinely go three to five days at a time without ever updating their own reports, much less any of the high traffic ski web presences that could help them promote people that are interested in skiing.
Two ski areas are reporting LESS natural snow than they’ve actually received this season. It isn’t because they don’t care, it is because they don’t know. They don’t know, because they don’t keep up with it every day. They don’t keep up with it everyday, because – well I DON’T KNOW WHY THEY DON’T.
While some ski areas have notorious pasts for over-reporting, some simply don’t report at all.
AND THEN SOME PROMOTE FOR NEXT SEASON!!!
Appalachian Ski Mountain announced this past weekend that they will remain open until April 11th – next season. Check out the announcement!
They are already planning for the 2009-2010 season! (These guys know how to market their product!)
HERE’S SOME COOL EMAILS THAT WE RECEIVED…
THIS FROM PANAMA!
Hi guys!.. I want to congratulate all of you at skisoutheast and skiNC for giving so much of your time to keep us dedicated skiers and boarders up to date on events and conditions throughout the Winter. I work about half of the year in Panama, Central America and live the other half near Asheville…close to Wolf Laurel actually. While in Panama( and even when I m at home locally in the USA)..
I like monitoring your news and website for the latest info! I find your reports and the gathering thereof..to be very fair and unbiased and in keeping with the main reason to have a website such as yours: To keep the skiing/boarding public informed and aware of what is really going on weather wise and infrastructure wise at all of our mountain ski resorts. The webcam page is really nice for me and my skiing friends here in Panama, when we want to check out the slopes and plan trips in advance! Please…keep up the good work you are doing for skiers and boarders in WNC and the whole South for that matter…and I mean REAALLY far south…as in PANAMA! The ~’Zone loves you guys..believe me! All the best from us hard core skiers/boarders here in the Panama Canal, Rep. of Panama.
Capt.Douglas J.W. Olsson, MasterMariner-Panama Canal Pilot
HERE’S SOME CUTE EMAILS – the kind we have to play with everyday.
This young lady from Mount Pleasant, SC wrote, "Is there any ice skating at wolf ridge?" All I have to say is that it is a good thing that we don’t allow Teledave and the Messageboard guys to answer these
questions! Man, I don’t have the heart…so let’s just answer, "no". They ARE doing a lot of developing over there and I think I heard that they intend to have an ice rink.
DIRECTIONS ARE US…
Just this past weekend we added new functionality (thanks to John Hopewell who took the time to do the work for us) that enables you guys to find directions to any ski resort FROM wherever you are.
Nevertheless, yesterday we received this cool email, from Rafael M of Miami, "I need directions from Miami Fl 33193."
O-k-a-y….
To where….
Gotta love you…
MIAMI…we really love you guys today! Hellen (with two "l"s) of Miami writes, "I’m planning a vacation for mid to end March and was wondering if you think there will be snow around that time. Thank you in
advance for your help!"
Your answer: Yes.
(I have no clue how MUCH snow or which resorts, etc…but they didn’t ask that.)
Here’s another cool email…
Homer H. of Nebo, NC wrote, "When did some egghead decide that NORMAL and AVERAGE meant the same thing? It is perfectly NORMAL for the high around here to be 50 degrees and perfectly NORMAL for the high to
be 25 degrees. Are you saying that it would be NORMAL for every high and low to be the same all winter? Hardly NORMAL. So it’s not NORMAL to be above AVERAGE? Please use the word AVERAGE when that is what
you really mean."
I’m confused. I think. Then again, I’m not normal, so I’ll stick with the misuse of the word. By the way, WeatherUnderground misuses it as well. They provide the forecast "as compared to normal". We’re
not average around here, so "normal" it is. Once that gets to feeling normal, we’ll switch to "average".
Diane F of Greenwood, S.C gives us all something to think about, "Where is the tubing located where you hook onto lift to return to top? Planning to go tubing and like the idea of hookong onto lift."
Answer: Um, it’s on the thingy right there where the thing hooks onto the tube, close to the top of the wire. I think."
(I’m sure she was asking WHERE the tubing hills are that have rope tows that get you back to the top without having to walk. They ALL do that Diane. Check out the new tubing page at: CLICK HERE FOR SNOW TUBING
THEN THIS IS THE KIND OF EMAILS THAT WE LIVE FOR…
…and then we get these kinds of emails that make it all WAY more than worthwhile…NYSPIDER on the messageboard, only identified by email as "SJBRAGZ" wrote, "Hi all staff at SKISE. I would like to thank you all and god bless the great work you do! I’ve been living in Charlotte now for three years or 4 snow seasons. I’ve been a reader of your web-site for that time as well. Actually I probably wouldn’t be living down here if I hadn’t come across your web-site and gotten so much detail on the ski resorts in the southeast. SKISE is my homepage from October to April and check periodically throughout the year. I love reading the articles and the accurate information I get daily. I absolutely love the way you handle those upset and not so wise people who email in with comments. In a recent article you mentioned some other sites that’s do reporting for the SE area I had no idea they existed since I only come to you guys. I just recently signed on to the messageboard. I’m not a 100% sure how it all works but I’m looking and reading everyday and will post soon once I figure it out. I just wanted to say THANKS & GOD BLESS for all the hard work you do!!! NYSPIDER"
Now I’m blushing… That’s it for today.
Thanks to all of you who make what we do so easy and cool!
Be sure to click over to www.SkiSoutheast.com to see what’s happening into the Virginias, Tennessee, and Maryland ski resort areas.
Send your comments, photos, videos and trip reports to: [email protected]