A sub-title to today’s post could be: A Tale of Two Mountains , The End of the Trail (see photo of the day above) or something similar as ski mountains at Wisp Resort in Maryland, Snowshoe Mountain, Timberline Mountain and Canaan Valley are all under Winter Weather Advisories and Warnings with pretty significant snow falling this morning.
Let’s get right into my last Sunday ramble of the 2021-2022 ski & snowboarding season.
David Lesher of Canaan Weather is reporting 8.3″ of new snow in the last 24 hours at Canaan Valley and Timberline. That is 10.4″ of snow in the last 48 hours. That takes that area to 95.5″ of snowfall on the season. However, does it count towards the snow totals for the ski season, since both Canaan and Timberline closed for the season last weekend?
Just FYI, I counted it! In the same way we counted Snowshoe Mountain’s snowfall before they actually opened this season. We have always just started counting snowfall totals from about November 1st until the last ski resort closes. Snowshoe is reporting 81″ on the season, rather than the 89″ that we credit them for. As some will still complain, that is a good 90+” short of the average snowfall per season.
Both Snowshoe, West Virginia and Davis, West Virginia (home to Canaan and Timberline) are reporting 8″ of new snowfall from this (now) 36 hour storm.
…again…a “Damn Fine Way to End It”.
Meanwhile the ski mountains just south of West Virginia – into Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina have been basked in sunshine after just a dusting of snow fell at Sugar & Beech mountains.
It was snowing as hard as I have seen it all winter long on Saturday morning at Canaan Valley Resort and Timberline Mountain in West Virginia and I really had no idea that the front was stuck in place up there as I was surprised to see that it was still bombing snow this morning.
…oh yea – and it’s cold everywhere! We’re seeing temperatures in the teens and 20s across the region. Snowshoe’s 15° reading this morning is the lowest we’ve seen across the region as of 8am.
It is West Virginia Ski Free Day at Snowshoe Mountain today.
As Snowshoe posted:
Bundle up- the temperatures have dropped and will hover near the single digits all day. The snow storm continued through the night, adding several inches to our slopes. Careful on the edges as there are certainly some thin cover spots to be aware of. Thanks to all of the guests and employees who made this season one to remember! There are 52 days until the Snowshoe Bike Park opens- we’ll see you back here then!
It’s last call folks, and not just for the winter season. Season passes increase in price on Monday, March 28th, so lock in the savings!
You’re welcome to check the SNOW REPORT, but I can save you some time. Today is the last day to ski or ride for the 2021-2022 ski & snowboarding season and you can only get turns in at Snowshoe Mountain with their 27 trails available; Sugar Mountain Resort with 9 slopes open and Cataloochee Ski Area with 4 trail open today.
The season will end at 4:30pm this afternoon as they all will pull the plug on skiing and snowboarding until we crank it all up again sometime in the Fall of this year.
“A Damn Fine Way to End it” – (third time saying it is the charm).
I ran into a couple of resort, mountain ops and managers over the last week and had the chance to speak with a couple more – and saw yet another while out and about on Saturday. To a person they all said the same thing about this surprise snowfall this weekend AND they reported pretty much the same sentiment about this entire season.
About the snow in West Virginia they said (you guessed it), “A damn fine way to end it” (the season)”. And to summing up this season – they all told me about the same thing. (This is a “mashup” of the remarks.)
It was neither the best season ever, nor subpar for normal. They all towed the industry line, boasting (rightfully so) about the millions of dollars of investments in the snowmaking capabilities and the technological advances of the same. They all reported “brisk traffic” that made for a nice, profitable season across the board, while not setting any records. Each manager that I spoke with was also quick to share that they were going to take a week or so to take a deep breath and “export the residue of a challenging season” and then get right on significant upgrades and new investments for the off-season to ensure that another fine ski and snowboarding season awaits us come November-December of 2022.
That IS what these guys and gals do. They work their tails off all season long and put in WAY more hours in six months than most of us do within an entire year. While many work from before dawn to midnight from November through March – they all put in a ton of time during the off season as well, to get things setup to do it all again the next go around.
You can’t DO that job unless it’s in your blood. It has to be your passion and I can tell you that while all of these mountain ops and top brass are tired and ready for a short breather to recharge their batteries – they ALL have a passion for the business.
Kudos to all of them.
…and NOW, My Thank You’s…
First –
THANK YOU TO OUR READERS AND VIEWERS across all platforms. I will get some data to brag about from our in-house, IT person and guru – TheKenDog, Kenny Griffin pertaining to ResortCams.com views but I am already privy to the knowledge that we set records this season. SkiSoutheast.com saw more traffic this season than ever, as well – and our reach on social media was two-to-three times our best year ever, which was LAST year. We just keep getting more and more followers and traffic and for that – WE THANK OUR READERS. We hope you keep this little space of ours bookmarked and tagged as THE PLACE to be virtually for all of the ski area news and more each and every season.
THANK YOU TO THE SKI RESORTS.
I don’t thank these guys and gals enough really. While we might pull in some revenue from Google and our advertisers across the region, the bulk of our support AND our ability to provide this website is due to our partner, ski areas.
Thanks to Snowshoe Mountain for being our top marketing partner. Beginning years ago with Joe Stevens and Bruce Petitt, followed by Bill Rock, Frank DeBerry and all of the fantastic marketing staffers that I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know – such as Laura Parquette, David Dekema and others in between…to the current team of Patti Duncan, Mikey Valache, Shawn Cassell, Heather Ransom, and others – Thanks for being great to me personally and to our SkiSoutheast family. Year after year, you guys set the standard and we appreciate your support and participation.
Very closely followed by the rest of our “core SkiSoutheast Supporters” – in alphabetical order:
Beech Mountain Resort, Bryce Resort, Canaan Valley Resort, Cataloochee Ski Area, Massanutten Resort, Ober Gatlinburg, Omni Homestead Resort, Wintergreen Resort, Winterplace Resort.
Add The West Virginia Ski Areas Association to our core content supports and a great “THANK YOU” to them.
You guys go above and beyond to support what we do here and we appreciate it tons. In addition to the fact that you provide the subject matter for what we talk about on this website, you step up and help support our team and allow us the ability to do what we do.
THANK YOU TO MATT LAWS.
Matt is my right hand man in terms of posting the SNOW REPORT and FirsTrax posts on weekdays all season long. It isn’t easy to find entertaining ways to share the news of the day when you have to do it more than 100 days of the season. Matt is always gracious and willing to jump in on a moment’s notice when I was not able to handle things on a couple of weekends and Holidays this season. He even rescued me on a couple of “selfish days” when I was on a weekend ski trip and just wanted to hit the snow early. Matt has been an integral part of our Appnet team since 2013 and shortly after, took on the additional duties as our daily snow reporter. Matt is an experienced sports writer and photographer with a variety of local newspapers and I appreciate his devotion to helping us here at SkiSoutheast.com.
THANK YOU TO KENNY GRIFFIN.
Kenny, theKenDog, Griffin is kind of our, in-house “baller”. Not only can Kenny “send it” down any terrain with blinding speed, he can do it while snapping up some amazing video with that GoPro of his. Kenny showed up in my office back in 2011 only to say “hi” and to let me know how much he loved the website. He had recently graduated from UNC Charlotte (School of Meteorology) and just wanted to drop by and say “If there’s ever anything I can do to be a part of the website…”
There was no job interview lined up and I wasn’t hiring at the time. However, I could instantly see his passion and I offered him a job with our web design team (and to be a part of SkiSoutheast). I’m a pretty good judge of people, but I have to be honest in sharing that I could have had NO CLUE just how brilliant theKenDog is and how much he has meant to our team and me personally. Kenny not only contributes each season, he’s the guy that keeps the machine running smoothly. His friendship and his sweet wife, Betsy mean a lot to us.
THANK YOU TO BRAD PANOVICH.
Around every September I reach out to my buddy, Brad Panovich to see if I can plead with him to be our “weather guy” for yet another season and for some reason he is gracious enough to accept. Thanks again to the ONLY, professional meteorologist on a ski website like ours – in Mr. Brad Panovich. Brad’s contributions are many both in front of the camera, on the air in Charlotte, North Carolina and behind the scenes promoting us on social media and otherwise. Brad posts 25-30, studio quality Skier’s Forecast videos annually and those forecasts are among the most accurate in the region. Having Brad as a part of our team is priceless. I’m just glad he loves weather so much, because we could not afford him otherwise! Brad, thank you on behalf of myself, our team and our readers. Trust me, the ski area mountain ops crew love you as well!
Talk about “tireless”. Between his duties as the Chief Meteorologist at WCNC Newschannel 36 in Charlotte; his social media presence with a kazillion followers; his “Man of the Year” status in the community of Charlotte, North Carolina AND his posting LIVE Skier’s Forecast Videos for us for more than eleven years now!…I don’t know how he gets to see his wife and kids.
Thanks for being such a passionate, snow-loving, weather professional. Truth is dude, YOU should be known as the skiing weatherman these days. (No disrespect to Herb Stevens.)
THANK YOU TO JOE STEVENS
Joe and I go way back now and our “story” began similar to how Kenny Griffin and I connected. Joe was working at Snowshoe Mountain as Director of Communications and somewhere around 2000-2002, he reached out to me via phone one morning to share how much he liked what we were doing with (then) SkiNC.com. He offered and became our first ever advertiser, supporter on the website. We struck up a conversation and he invited me to a media weekend that next weekend and the rest is history. We were instant friends. Joe is an experienced media professional and we were fortunate to have him join us in 2005 as a featured, weekly columnist. He first called his weekly column, “Joe Knows Snow” (which he does!) and subsequently changed the name to “Snow News is Good News”. Seventeen years and some 200 +/- posts later, Joe is a great voice for all things snow. He promotes SkiSoutheast across a wide platform of media outreach and he’s the voice and braintrust for the West Virginia Ski Areas Association. Joe Stevens is active nationally, within the industry as well and we can’t thank him enough for all he does here.
Joe has won many lifetime achievement awards and recognitions for serving the ski industry and he’s an award winner with us as well!
(Joe and I missed every opportunity to ride the snow together this season. We were close a couple of times, but we will have to make up for it next season.)
Read Joe’s Seventeenth Annual Snowies Awards here
THANK YOU TO BRIAN DIX.
Brian Dix joined our team a few seasons ago and has quickly acquired a fanbase within our readership. He’s an avid skier and snow-lover. While he resides in Charlotte, North Carolina, Brian seems to make the time to be ON or at a ski resort nearly every weekend or so. He’s provided valuable and entertaining content from several ski areas these last few seasons and I’ve grown to be a fan myself. Brian will usually give me a “heads up” that he is open to skiing at various mountains within the region and we quickly collaborate and he’s THERE.
His outlook on the industry and the ski areas within our coverage area is fresh and I look forward to growing his involvement in seasons to come. THANKS AGAIN BRIAN. I hate we missed a few close changes to make turns together this season. We’ll make it happen this next season.
THANK YOU TO RUDY RYBACK.
Rudy is kind of our “stealth” snow reporter. Matt Laws and myself will be minding our own business, doing our thing, posting daily and all of a sudden we will notice that a story has been posted overnight or between one that Matt, Kenny or myself had posted. I shared that fact last year as well, as I wouldn’t even know he was lurking out there at various mountains this season and then all of a sudden a story would appear! Thanks for your unique perspective on the sport, Rudy. Thanks for being a part of our team.
Rudy’s writing is awesome and he is THE GUY that always seems to challenge himself to give us and our readers something a little out of the ordinary. Thanks for the entertainment Rudy.
Are YOU Ready for NEXT SEASON???
Today will put a period on this season, but we are only seven months or some 35+/- weeks away from doing it all again next season. Are you ready? I’m telling you guys that I’ve already been hearing from several resorts and vacation rental experts around the region and they are telling me that they are already getting a lot of reservations and booking made for the peak weeks and weekends next season!
I try to mix in a ski trip out west every few years around the Christmas-to-New-Year’s week and for many or most seasons I will spend that week at Snowshoe Mountain. As I mentioned earlier, Snowshoe is always our platinum supporter and they give us a great “hookup” and then I also invest a nice sum and we pretty much take over Highland House and the slopes that week with my family, Kenny Griffin, Lisa Clough and others on my team.
We’ll do that again next season, but I also started looking around at Canaan Valley and Timberline Mountain for lodging over the Holidays next season and there is VERY LITTLE to be had that is ski-in / ski-out for the Christmas week! Crazy, but true. That forced my hand and we’ve already booked up a 7BR house, just off the Winterset trail at Timberline for Christmas…but it was one of the last available!
Skiing and Snowboarding has become much more of a “plan ahead” thing these last two seasons due to the fact that more people are able to work remotely and they are traveling closer to home – at least right now.
So, I’m ready. Are you?
We also already have plans to reinstitute the SkiSoutheast Summit for next season and we’ll be sharing those plans earlier than ever to ensure more of you guys can join us. We will also be giving away some ski-in/ski-out accommodations and other ski-getaways next season. We used to do that all season long as well as giving away lift passes and ski/snowboard rentals. We will get those going again now that things are returning to some semblance of normalcy.
So that’s it. Matt Laws or I will probably reset all of the SNOW REPORT listings to “Closed for the Season” and we will probably take a deep breath and relax a little ourselves. Then we will try to provide some periodic updates and I might even share some summer fun postings from the lake and around the region. After all, these mountains offer tons more than just skiing and snowboarding!
Anyway – feel free to email me at [email protected] Until Next Time