Let’s Get Ready….to….Raaaammmmbbbblllleeee.
Sundays are my day to ramble. Today is the day I let the inner, digital nomad within me loose to travel around the Southeast and mid-Atlantic to share my passion of all things skiing & snow with you guys.
I have to begin today’s ramble with the announcement that West Bowl at Beech Mountain Resort is OPEN today! That is the old Oz Run and I have to admit that I didn’t think they would work to open it this season with the weather challenges we’ve seen. The Oz Run (oops, I mean West Bowl) is a nice, glide run (blue) that meanders along the ridge at the top of Beech’s 5506′ elevations. I really don’t WHY we all make such a fuss about it getting open, but we do…and I do. It DOES offer another trail off the back side of the mountain and disperses traffic during a heavy visit weekend – like President’s Day coming up.
Great to see it open for sure. That also makes Beech 100% open discounting one rarely used, “Carolina Carribean” slope.
Here is a video share of West Bowl from Beech Mountain
Beech Mountain shared this explanation of the name change:
“We’re getting lots of questions about the name change. West Bowl pays tribute to the original developers of Beech Mountain Resort. Grover and Harry Robbins joined other investors and created Carolina Caribbean Corporation in 1965. The original plans define West Bowl as a potential area to expand resort terrain and open an additional golf course.
And, most importantly, we like the name.
Wisp Opens More Terrain As Well
New Trails opened on North Camp! Little Dipper and Whipsaw are now open and groomed! Chairs 4 & 5 are OPEN to service trails Main Street, Highline Pass, and Eye Opener.
Photo of the Day – Part Deux!
If you check out the Photo of the Day up top, that is from Deep Creek Lake, Maryland and shared by Kristen Skeweris.
My NEXT nomadic visit this morning is to have a look at some gorgeous “Frost Flowers” that were shared with me by my new buddy, Kristen Skeweris of Railey Realty up in Deep Creek, Maryland.
Kristen occupied the Photo of the Day spot on Saturday morning and I texted her to inform her of that and then she turned around and sent me the Photo of the Day for TODAY!
How could I not feature these? Frost Flowers are p-r-e-t-t-y rare. When temperatures drop, frost flowers—also known as ice flowers, ice fringes, ice filaments, and rabbit ice—come out to play.
The rare “blooms” require freezing temperatures and a perfect storm of conditions to form, making them rather rare. THANKS TO KRISTEN for thinking of us and sending along.
Just as an added bonus of edumacation this here morning – you will more often find Frost Flowers on plant stems as is shown here Courtesy of the Atlanta History Center. In these conditions, water traveling up plant stems expands.
The expansion can cause vertical splits in the plant stem, and when the water in the stems is exposed to freezing air, paper-thin layers of ice begin extruding through the newly formed slits. Like snowflakes, no two of these whimsical frost flowers is alike, and they’re also extremely fleeting.
Frost Flowers are a lot like RIME ICE. We see rime ice MANY TIMES each season as supercooled mountain fog leaves MAGIC behind.
SPEAKING OF MAGIC…
I don’t know if any of you saw this share from the last few days of this beautiful and massive bison from Yellowstone National Park. Temperatures hit MINUS 35° there this week and some rime ice formed on this impressive creature.
The photo was captured by Tom Murphy Photography and we are happy to provide a link to visit his website at: Tom Murphy Photography
As I sit here tapping away at the keys on my laptop, the LAST of the snowguns are now OFF across the region as temperatures are now above freezing.
That will make for some sweet, corduroy runs early in the day and then as things soften up just right, conditions will be simply marvelous.
The last couple of days have provided some amazing weather for which the snowmakers and groomers have worked their magic to make for perfect days on the slopes.
This next short clip is from Kristen Skeweris and it shows Deep Creek Lake below and some sweet conditions ON THE SNOW.
Still Rambling here…
Canaan Valley Resort shared this tribute to ME, because of my Sunday “rambles”. Haha. Just kidding. They DO have a little cutback slope named “Ramble” and they are making snow to get it open soon.
Frost Flowers Aren’t the Only Rare Sighting!
Massanutten Resort shared this rare shot of their winch cat working with another groomer to groom one of the steeper trails.
Honestly, this photo of the winch cat COULD have been POD (Photo of the Day) today as it too is such a rare sighting.
OBER DIVA DAY!
I couldn’t find any deets on it, but here’s the promo!
Timberline Mountain Video Share
Winterplace Snowmaker
Winterplace posted this:
Shout out to our Mountain Operations Team for showing out the past two days! What an incredible snowmaking run. This weekend’s conditions are going to be phenomenal and the weather forecast is just perfect. We’re open from 9:00am-9:00pm. See you on the mountain!
#thankasnowmaker #skiwinterplace #skiwv #WP40thAnniversary #ski #Winterplace #skilocal
Some Closing Comments and Shares:
It was 15-20° milder this morning than on Saturday morning. Most of the ski areas were able to make snow overnight although the only one still doing so at daybreak was Cataloochee.
Check out the difference between this morning and 24 hours ago!
Here are some photo shares from this morning:
…and a parting shot across the bow…
Several people have emailed me about WHY we are not sharing much about Wolf Ridge these days. One reader wrote, “Just wondering if you guys care about what’s going on at Wolf these days?”
My answer? “Do THEY care?”
Their website is terrible and rarely updated accurately. Is tubing open? Are they open for night skiing? Will anything more than 4-5 slopes be open? The answer to all of these questions and more…will likely be answered by whoever decides to purchase the place down the road. There isn’t much care going into the place right now.
We’ve called from time to time offering some chances to get the word out. Not much coming out of Wolf these days and they are the brunt of some strong complaints via our SkiMail inbox and Social Media – even on their own Facebook page – which they don’t respond to. Oh well…
That’s it for me today. I was going to share some seasonal snow totals this morning, but I’ll save that for another day.
Stay tuned and THINK SNOW. THINK COLD!
Check the SNOW REPORT this morning for full details.
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