What a Wild, Crazy Ride We’ve Had This Week…

I could have easily replaced “week” with Winter as this has been one for the record books for certain.

Quick note to check the SNOW REPORT for trails open today. Lots to play on. You can also watch this Video Snow Report if you don’t want to read this post. Scroll down if you do and also I hope you guys will take our poll below.

BACK TO “THE WILD AND CRAZY RIDE”

I’ve been covering the ski areas for the Southeast and mid-Atlantic daily for around 150+ days of each season for 25 years and I can attest to the fact that I have not witnessed a season like this one. I interviewed Canaan Valley Resort’s Steve Drumheller a couple of weeks ago and at that time he mentioned having to build and rebuild the base snow for the Tucker County, WV ski resort three times already this season after heavy rains and mild stretches of weather.

Well add another semi-rebuild to that list as moderate rainfall (1.61″) and mild temps, reaching 57° hit earlier this week. Then as the rains moved out Thursday night temperatures took a nose dive into the teens, bringing the snowmakers back online and after that and 4.7″ of snowfall since Friday morning (through this morning), voilà – we have pristine conditions for the weekend.

Ditto that scenario that I just described for all of the ski areas of the region. In fact, ditto it on steroids for several of the North Carolina ski areas. After an amazing stretch of cold air and tons of snowmaking that lasted from January 17th through February 3rd. Those conditions, along with 5-6″ of natural snow made for the best conditions of the season.

THEN on Wednesday of this week – the NC resorts saw temperatures rocket up into the mid and upper 50s  and for the FOURTH time this winter, we saw more than 2″ of rainfall in a single rain event at the High Country’s ski resorts of Appalachian Ski Mountain, Sugar Mountain Resort and Beech Mountain Resort.

In fact, Appalachian saw a 4″ rain for the second time this winter with another 4.76″ of rain falling Tuesday night through Thursday night of this week.

Here are some of the rainfall totals from this past week:

2.83″ Banner Elk
3.37″ Beech
3.72″ Sugar
4.76″ Appalachian

1.85″ Snowshoe
1.61″ Canaan

As crazy as that has been, all of the resorts in the region had built up enough base snow with that great stretch of cold air and natural snow that they actually would have been okay for this weekend’s crowds even if cold air and more snow had not returned as it did.

Some grooming would have been adequate. However, thankfully, the temperatures dove down Thursday night across the region, triggering the snowmaking crews to go back to work making that manmade, white gold and as of Friday night (and still this morning) things are looking pretty, freaking awesome across the region!

Add to that, the fact that we’ve seen from 2″ to 6″ of natural snow over the last 24 hours or so and THAT, my friends spells a return of pristine ski and snowboarding conditions for your weekend enjoyment.

AGAIN – what a WILD RIDE! From a quick glance at the week ahead, it appears that the wild ride is to continue. However, we’ll let Brad Panovich and Matt Laws cover that story for you guys as the next few days unfold.

THE LIVE CAMS ARE SHOWING REMARKABLE IMAGERY THIS MORNING

I did a quick “sunrise tour” this morning as we captured some nice views around 7:30am. Honestly, the best views are usually around 6:45am and again at around 6pm via all of the LIVE cams on ResortCams.com.

I have to say that there is not many things as beautiful as the sunrises and sunsets that we are able to witness on these mountaintops.

WHITE GOLD FELL FROM THE HEAVENS…

Here are the natural snow totals from all mountain tops over the last 24-30 hour period.

6″  – Snowshoe Mountain
6″ – Wisp Resort
4.3″ – Canaan Valley Resort
4″ – Beech Mountain Resort
3.5″ – Sugar Mountain Resort
3″ – Winterplace Resort
3″ – Wolf Ridge Resort
2″ – Cataloochee Ski Area
1″ – Appalachian Ski Mountain
1″ – Ober Gatlinburg
0.7″ – Omni Homestead Resort
Trace – Bryce Resort
Trace – Massanutten Resort
Trace – Wintergreen Resort
Trace – Sapphire Valley Resort

We have obviously been experiencing a bit of a snow drought this season. Here are those accumulated numbers thus far. Since we are about 55-60% done with this season, you can see where resorts are at about 20%-30% of normal snowfall.

57.3″ – Canaan Valley Resort
50″ – Snowshoe Mountain
36″ – Wisp Resort
30″ – Beech Mountain Resort
26″ – Sugar Mountain Resort
17″ – Winterplace Resort
16″ – Cataloochee Ski Area
14″ – Bryce Resort
11″ – Ober Gatlinburg
11″ – Wintergreen Resort
11″ – Wolf Ridge Resort
5.7″ – Omni Homestead Resort
5.5″ – Appalachian Ski Mountain
5″ – Massanutten Resort
1.5″ – Sapphire Valley Resort

*  As I have been reporting all season long, Sugar Mountain is vastly over-reporting their natural snow totals. There have been 12 snow events so far this season with more than a trace of snow. Sugar has been skewing the number for each snow event by an inch or more each time. When you add those all up, they sure paint a snowy picture – but that painting would be a forgery. 42″ on the season would have Sugar on schedule for a normal snowfall season as they average 78″ annually. This has been anything but a normal season for natural snowfall.

42″ would also make Sugar showing more snow than Wisp this season and that just is not the case. Here’s the real painting…and the forgery.

Come Join Us at Snowshoe Mountain for the 13th Annual SkiSoutheast Summit – February 28th-March 1st

We are up to (66) people attending and you KNOW you should be there with us. Check out the SkiSoutheast Summit page and come hang with us and GET:

15-20% OFF LODGING

FREE SUNDAY LIFT PASSES (for everyone in your booked unit*)

FREE FIRST TRACKS WITH OUR CREW SUNDAY MORNING

As if THAT isn’t enough to entice you to come hang out with us…

We’re Buying Lunch and Drinks

…and we will be doing lunch down at the Boathouse on Saturday at 1pm and we will buy lunch and drinks (even beer) for the first 100 people who sign up to attend!

The Boathouse peeps have always been accommodating with our Summit crew and there will be hamburgers, hotdogs, chili and all sorts of good eats and drinks.

Come to the Boathouse after noon on Saturday and you’ll easily see our crew on the deck. We will be the ones with all of the hoodies, beanies, shirts and more to give away. Come by and say “Hi” and we will give you a “ticket” to show the peeps inside the Boathouse and they will take great care of you.

We’ll also have some new beanies / boggins to give away as well as stickers and more.

Also – in honor of our own Joe Stevens of “Snow News is Good News”, we will have some cool, new hoodies this season. Check these out!

We have a couple of other surprises in store, so be sure to visit the SUMMIT INVITATION PAGE and book your reservation NOW to get in on the FREE lunch and Giveaways!

Hey Guys and Gals, How Do YOU Get Your SkiSoutheast News?

As social media has morphed into a “news outlet” all it’s own – still growing as well – we have heard from so many of you via emails and posts asking about how and when we share all of our news, photos and videos. To be honest, we post our FirsTrax news daily as well as a couple of photos and videos and then throughout the day we update Facebook and Instagram with a lot more content.

We’ve heard from so many of you who seem to be missing out on news via Social Media that we wanted to conduct this poll to help educate us on how we might need to tweak our content delivery.

If you will, take a moment and take this short poll, that would be great.

That will do it for today.

We’d REALLY LOVE IT…if you would:

Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel < For great Video Notifications

Like Us on Facebook! < The Best Ski Resort News Around! If you LIKE us you will automatically be eligible to win free lift tickets and other giveaways that we do all season long!

If you want to drop me an email or comment, feel free. Your thoughts, trip reports, input, suggestions or general commentaries are welcome.

Email me your thoughts, comments or any news to [email protected]