We usually use Fridays to provide a brief tour of the region’s ski resorts. Today the conditions at YOUR favorite ski area are THE BEST they have been all season! Here’s the summaries!
Wisp Resort at Deep Creek in Maryland has seen 1” of new snow thus far this morning and you could hear the excitement in Lori Epp’s voice up there as she handled the snow report for today. It was still snowing this morning and Wisp will be offering (13) trails and (6) lifts today!
Snowshoe Mountain picked up another 2” of snow in the last 24 hours, giving them 28” on the season. They also added another open trail to up their count to 39 trails for today. Snowshoe has had some awesome weather of late! They are announcing that they will be opening THE CUPP RUN on Saturday as well!
Canaan Valley had not updated their report this morning so we checked in with the guys up there and they are holding with the (7) trails and (2) lifts open for day and night skiing on Friday. They received 2” of snow as well!
Timberline Resort received 2” of snow and is offering (10) trails and packed powder conditions today! Remember that they are offering their “Winter Celtic Festival” this weekend! The Celtic celebration will feature Celtic music at 4 pm Friday and Saturday. Celtic music with its residual Irish and Scottish influence is now being performed increasingly here in the Appalachian Mountains. Appearing at the weekend Celtic festival will be JB Tenney, Pete Tenney and their associates playing traditional Irish and Scottish music on fiddle, guitar, bagpipe, mandolin and vocals. There is no cover charge for any of the performances. Late Friday and Saturday entertainment 9pm until 2 am will be the unique rhythmic sounds by Macho Willie. Restaurant open early until late.
Winterplace Resort only saw a trace of the snow that fell across West Virginia yesterday, however along with GREAT snowmaking ops, they are offering (12) trails for Friday. Expect more to open on Saturday!
(Editor’s Note: While I’m on the West Virginia report, we want to congratulate both The West Virginia Ski Areas Association and Joe Stevens today. Joe has been a regular columnist for SkiSoutheast for the last three seasons and he as been chosen as the official spokesperson for the West Virginia Ski Areas. Congrats on that. …and congrats to the association for picking the right guy to do the job. Joe unquestionably brings a ton of experience and exuberance to the position. We’ll expect to hear more from up there!)
West Virginia Notes – Part Trey!
Since I was on a “West Virginia kick” right now, I should take a moment and thank Lenora Testerman of Canaan Valley, and Pam Long of Timberline for getting more involved in providing us content more consistently this season. Additionally, we want to take a more and officially say “farewell” to Andrea Smith of Snowshoe. She is heading to Colorado Springs, Colorado to work for USA Cycling. Lindsay Kutsko will be handling much of the communications and PR duties for Snowshoe. Lindsay’s already sent us some nice photos recently and we’re hopeful that she will keep the flow coming!
Bryce Resort has added (2) more open trails to up their offering to (6) to go along with tubing and terrain park features.
Massanutten Resort is still having issues with a broken pipe. They were hoping to resume ski operations for today, but they are forced to delay the re-opening until hopefully Saturday. They expect to be able to post an update at 2:30pm Friday about a Saturday opening. As of this morning they were relatively positive about being able to reopen tomorrow.
Wintergreen is poised to open more terrain and snow tubing on Saturday. Right now they are sticking with (5) open trails and focusing snowmaking ops on the terrain they will open tomorrow.
Ober Gatlinburg ski area in Tennessee was not able to make snow yesterday and they are offering (3) trails and (2) lifts for Friday.
Cataloochee’s Tammy Brown reports, “We have also begun making snow on the top of the mountain, Upper Omigosh and hope to open the top of the mountain on Saturday. Please check back by Friday evening for an update.” They are offering 7 slopes, snow tubing and some terrain park features as well, on a base of 24-45”. Their popular tubing hill, Tube World located in Maggie Valley, across from Ghost Town four miles from the ski area will be open from 4pm until 10pm.
Hawksnest had not updated their report as yet this morning, but they are showing six trails plus tubing open. Raven’s Run was being reported as open, but we’re not certain about today, so call ahead. Remember that Hawksnest is open until midnight tonight and Saturday.
Sapphire Valley – Someone emailed us that Sapphire Valley was the first resort to get to 100% open! That was cute since Sapphire only HAS (2) trails and tubing. RJ Grady reports, “We’ve had some great snowmaking down here and we have both trails and the Frozen Falls Tubing Park open!”
Ski Beech has been cranking out the snow and we were watching at 8:17am this morning as the guns were blasting. That will make for great conditions for today on the (6) trails that they currently have open. Look for more terrain to open by Saturday.
Sugar Mountain has (12) slopes open today and will be opening more on Saturday as well as their Tubing hill!
Wolf Ridge Resort is looking great this morning! They have added (3) trails to their open terrain and now have (10) open plus tubing and terrain park features on a base of 14-28”!
Winter Here to Stay?!?!
We went out on a limb a bit the other day and predicted that Winter was going to hang around for the rest of the season. I caught a little flack from naysayers, but you HAVE to think positively. We’re sticking by our statement. It’s nice to have had a wonderful week of snowmaking weather, along with a little light natural snow this past week. That will make for a GREAT weekend of skiing!
The forecast for the NEXT full week looks great as well! Resorts should be able to make snow all day today at most resorts in the region! The forecast for the next 7-10 days looks COLD and SNOWY! After that? EVEN COLDER AIR IS IN THE FORECAST!!! Yea baby!
Get out and enjoy THE BEST conditions of the season!
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Until Next Time…
THINK COLD AND SNOW!!!
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For more information about the ski resorts of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic visit www.SkiSoutheast.com
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