Editor’s note: You guys have GOT to read through or at least scroll to the bottom of today’s post to see ALL of the great videos we are sharing today.
The photo of the day is compliments of Snowshoe Mountain, sharing a unique view of grooming the mountain.
As of 7am this morning temperatures were dipping as low as 5° and 6° at locations like Snowshoe Mountain and Canaan Valley in West Virginia. Single digits popped up at Beech Mountain Resort (8°) and Sugar Mountain, where the low this morning was 9°. I saw a reported low temperature of 10° at Wisp Resort this morning, although they are sharing 11° as of 7am. Everywhere else is in the teens, with some low 20s this morning.
Some light, natural snow fell overnight – and is still falling this morning.
After two days and nearly 1″ of rain fell across most mountaintops of the region, today’s snowfall and frigid temperatures offer the perfect ingredients for massive snowmaking ops that happened overnight last night and continue at most locations this morning.
Translation: Conditions will be sweet for this entire weekend. We are QUICKLY back to peak conditions.
As of this writing (8am) we are already seeing blue skies peaking through the massive snowmaking that is happening at places like Cataloochee Ski Area in beautiful Maggie Valley, North Carolina.
Not so yet at Sugar and Beech Mountain where things are still quite wintry.
Things Are Snowier Still Into West Virginia
While Beech Mountain Resort reported 1″ of natural snowfall overnight and so far this morning, Sugar (of course) is reporting 2″. (Good grief.) Our eyes, a longtime friend, who lives atop Sugar Ski & Country Club, which is located ON Oma’s Meadow at Sugar, reported maybe 1″, as the howling winds have pushed a lot of it around.
A-n-y-w-a-y, David Lesher’s Canaan Valley Weather central is reporting an official 3.6″ of new snowfall there, which is nearly identical to the official, NWS reporting station at Snowshoe Mountain which reported 4″ of snowfall overnight. Winterplace Resort is showing 2″ of natural snowfall this morning and 15° cold degrees.
So it is snowy AND it is COLD!
It is a Winter Wonderland Across the Region
We talk a lot about our ski resorts of the region, but all of our ski areas are part of our mountain towns and communities and they have all been looking quite wintry lately.
After 41″ of natural snowfall in the month of January in the High Country, and as much as 53″ of snow in West Virginia – we’ve had snow on the ground for four straight weeks. That excites the masses off the mountain to head to their favorite ski town – and the awesome news is that has been happening at every ski mountain.
The aforementioned rain that fell earlier this week all but eliminated the 6-8″ of snow that was still on my deck, here at my home in Sleepy Hollow. However, piles of snow are still all across the area and now that this 1-4″ of snow has fallen, everything is back to looking like a Currier & Ives postcard. For those of you under 40 years old, you may have to Google that to understand the reference.
Some Notables…
Timberline Mountain – Evidently their phone systems are down this morning and that has both live webcams dead in the water. I’m sure those will come back on soon enough. They have 19 of 20 slopes and trails open for today. Off the Wall is the only trail not open.
I enjoyed watching these groomers at Massanutten Resort this morning as they worked in tandem. Massanutten picked up 0.5″ of snow this morning and they were blasting the slopes with snowmaking.
Speaking of Massanutten, they are actually 100% open today, however Pacesetter will be closed to the public on Saturday and Sunday for USSA event.
Ober Gatlinburg – They picked up 0.5″ of natural snowfall, which put a snowy coat on the mountain top amusement park. They also reported MAKING 6″ of snow on the mountain and THAT has them 70% open today with 7 of 10 slopes operating.
Snowshoe Mountain – picked up 4″ of new snowfall and the conditions via the LIVE cams looked almost blizzard-like this morning. Snowshoe dropped 6 slopes from yesterday’s offerings to focus on snowmaking, but they have a “league leading” 56 of 61 slopes and trails open.
Omni Homestead Resort – Today we have all 9 trails open and a base of 37” – but we’re making snow and will continue to do so as long as conditions permit. Goggles are recommended.
Wintergreen Resort – Our own, Brian Dix is at Wintergreen Resort today. Conditions look pretty pristine there this morning even though no natural snowfall materialized. With 24 of 27 slopes open, we’re betting on some nice photos and videos from Brian today.
Winterplace Resort – Open to the top of the Mountain with 26 trails and 11 lifts in operation. Slope hours for today are 9:00 AM – 9:00 PM. Snowtubing and the Kiddie tubing park open at 9:00 AM. Trails, New snow overnight of 2″ plus the Winterplace mountain ops team made snow overnight making for great conditions today. Lift tickets can be purchased online.
Editor’s Note: Things like damn nice this morning. I have to get back up there to drop in on Nose Dive a couple more times before the season is over. Joe? You ready to meet up?
Bryce Resort – they are 100% and Bryce posted a sweet video on Facebook and hashtagged SkiSoutheast in it, but we tried to share it here with embedding but due to some copyright, it won’t post. However, we still think it’s worthy to LINK TO, so click here to see Bryce’s GM Ryan Locher tearing up the mountain on Wednesday.
Ryan MIGHT just be the fastest skiing GM in the region. Several years ago Ryan raced in Europe, South America and New Zealand – and was named All-American Ski Racer four times. So the dude can melt some snow on his way down a hill. For those unaware, Ryan attended Lees-McRae College here in our backyard in Banner Elk and took over as GM of Bryce Resort. Now in his early 40s, Ryan took over the reins as GM from his father, Horst Locher who is still on the mountain. Ryan’s uncle, Manfred also served as GM for years. Definitely a family legacy up there at Bryce.
Check out Ryan’s cruise…
In Other Shares… (that were not copyrighted…haha)
Canaan Valley Resort – Mark Moody shared another sweet video yesterday. Check this out:
We seem to be on a video, share kick. Check out this from:
Ober Gatlinburg – They shared that the Ober Gatlinburg Freestyle Terrain Park has moved to Lower Bear. There are six features to enjoy!
Wolf Ridge Resort shared this one yesterday.
X-Country Skiing Share
This one comes from Deep Creek Lions Park in Garrett County Maryland.
Snowshoe Mountain Resort shared this on Friday:
That will do it for me for this gorgeous Saturday. Feel free to Email me at [email protected]
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