The Long, 4 Day MLK Holiday Weekend is Here!
If you came here expecting to see the usual Video Forecast for Saturday morning, I’m having some issues with the studio programming and we’ll see about updating things later. I can tell you as I toured the entire coverage area that things look amazing after just 30 hours or so of snowmaking. On Thursday morning a tour of the LIVE CAMS would have shown you guys a LOT of bare areas, muddy bases and narrowing slopes and trails. Just 30-36 hours later we are seeing a transformation back to near, mid-season LOOKING conditions. I used “LOOKING” because, trust me, some of those bases are not up to where we would expect them to be for a normal, mid-January day. However, we can be very happy that all of those thin coverage areas and bare spots are covered with new, manmade snow and things look great.
Check the SNOW REPORT for all the deets or scroll down for some highlights.
We DID see some light snow as I looked around the region. Canaan Valley’s David Lesher reported 1.2″ of snow and Wisp Resort is reporting nearly 1″ of mixed snow and sleet. When I was looking at the LIVE CAM at WISP this morning – fairly moderate SNOW was falling. Check it out here.
While I am on Wisp, they shared a pretty sweet shot yesterday that we’ve used as our header photo of the day after great snowmaking transformed their mountain.
On a somewhat “downer note”, Ober Gatlinburg, The Homestead Resort and Wolf Ridge Resort were not able to make snow overnight. So Ober is still temporarily closed for skiing and snowboarding. The Homestead plans to reopen January 26th and Wolf IS OPEN today with 4 slopes and trails.
We saw much colder temperatures at some locations after midnight last night with some areas getting as low as 14°, where they are now at 26°. Such is the case at Canaan Valley Resort where they ALSO picked up 1.2″ of snowfall, to give them nearly 2″ over the last 36 hours or so. That gets them to 42.7″ on the season.
We’re seeing mid-twenty degree temperatures at most locations, but some anomalies like the 35.2° temp as of 7:30am this morning at Cataloochee Ski Area where the snowguns are already turned off. Just to be clear, Cataloochee and all of the ski areas have made a ton of snow and the conditions are going to be awesome today.
Here is a Quick Tour of the Area…and we go in a little different order this morning
OBER GATLINBURG – It is 39° there this morning and the cold temps should get them back in the snowmaking business tonight. However, right now they are not open for skiing & snowboarding. They DO have their tubing hill looking awesome and they offer ice skating and mountain coastering this weekend. They posted:
The current forecast shows more consistent winter temps (snow-making weather) returning to normal in the next few days, especially starting Saturday night, 1/18 … BUT one night of snow-making is not likely enough to reopen the slopes … we need those temps to continue at least a couple of days (or nights). So, please stay tuned to this page for updates and keep your fingers crossed 🙂
Wisp Resort – 16 Slopes Open + Tubing, Ice Skating, Terrain Parks and Mountain Coastering
Wisp Resort picked up around 1″ of mixed precip overnight and the mountain is looking sweet this morning.
Appalachian Ski Mountain – 8 Slopes Open + Both Terrain Parks and Ice Skating
Beech Mountain Resort – 10 Slopes Open + Terrain Park, Tubing and Ice Skating
Upper and Lower Robbins Run is Open as Well!
Cataloochee Ski Area – 7 Slopes Open to the top! Tubing reopening soon
We saw Chris Bates out grooming early this morning and the conditions look awesome.
Sapphire Valley Ski Area – Still temporarily closed. They have made some snow and it looked like the snowguns were doing a little something this morning. I’d call ahead because even though they are showing still closed on their website, they LOOK like they could open.
Sugar Mountain Resort – 9 Slopes Open & Ice Skating. Tubing is Closed.
Wolf Ridge Resort – 4 Slopes Open. Tubing and Terrain Parks are Closed. We don’t think Wolf was able to make snow overnight at all from what we can tell. That should change Saturday night.
VIRGINIA
Bryce Resort – 6 Slopes Open + Tubing & Ice Skating Open
Massanutten Resort – 6 Slopes + Tubing & Ice Skating Open
Around the clock snowmaking allowed them to re-open Geronimo and Lower Showtime today. The Terrain Park crew has 5 freestyle features set up on lower Nutten -To-It. Cloudy, highs in the mid 30s with some light mixed precipitation possible. Snowmaking is in progress and will continue as the temperature allows.
The snow makers will be adding to the base on existing trails and turning their attention to Upper Showtime and Paradice in the coming days.
Omni Homestead Resort – is planning to reopen January 26th. Making snow. They do have ice skating and a ton of amenities on the mountain.
Wintergreen Resort – 6 Slopes Open + Tubing
Kinda loving this video…
WEST VIRGINIA
Canaan Valley Resort – 14 Slopes Open + 5 Lanes of Tubing and Ice Skating!
The slopes are holding up great! Quality rides can be found on Timber and Ramble these days, and we are holding steady with 14 trails to ski and ride on! Snowmaking continues with additional trails opening soon.
Snowshoe Mountain Resort – 41 Slopes Open + Several Terrain Parks & Tubing, Snowmobiling and more!
They were the cold spot night before last with a 9 degree reading and they are still that with the 22 degree low this morning.
They posted:
We love waking up to the sound of snowguns on a Saturday morning! Read more…
Temperatures dipped into the teens overnight allowing our snowmakers to really crank out some high quality stuff. The forecast today is calling for a mixed bag of precipitation, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed and doing our dances for mostly snow. We’ll keep you posted on any lift or trail changes throughout the day here on the snow report. The Bear’s Den is open from 11AM-8PM at Silver Creek! Stop in and grab lunch at one of the mountain’s best kept secrets.
Winterplace Resort – 13 Slopes Open + Tubing
Man they rocketed back up from 6 open on Friday. Conditions look awesome.
That will do it for today.
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