Who will Open First?

North Carolina's Sugar Mountain?

West Virginia's Timberline Mountain or Snowshoe Mountain?

Pennsylvania's Blue Mountain or Seven Springs?

...or is there a wild card? If so name it and why you think they have a chance.

Source Snowpak (Timberline data not reliable so not shown)

Blue Knob. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

7S will be one of the first in the region. Snowshoe is a strong contender.

Updated forecast

Sugar - looking good!

Cat - not bad either...a little more mild

Timberline - looking sweet!

Snowshoe- ditto!

Blue Mountain

Appalachian in Boone, NC is targeting Nov. 18 as opening day.

App has installed RFID for 2022-23.  It's the first NC ski area to implement RFID.

Sugar and Cat are traditionally really, really aggressive - Cat has beaten Killington by one hour just to say they did it. Both have the firepower to make something happen quick, too - especially with lows in the lower 20s.

Blue Mtn is in an awkward spot where they can't run Vista Lift easily - it unloads right next to an ongoing lift install project and blocks access. They don't have a lift for Main Street/Burma, their typical opening day route. And Paradise or Dreamweaver, their options on the other peak, just don't have the same firepower as Main Street (Paradise is slightly wider with 100' spaced double towers. Main Street has a mix of 70' spaced single and double towers on both sides - Paradise has more than 60% more trail per gun, though they can supplement this with a few portable guns too.) I don't expect Blue to be quite as aggressive this early season as they would be with all lifts fully functioning.

Seems pretty clear App will be able to open on Nov. 18.  Everyone in western NC is watching Sugar and Cat to see what happens in the next week.

Here We Go! Expect The Roar Of Snowguns To Echo Through Several Mountaintops This Evening - Nov. 12

" . . .

As with every ski season, Cataloochee and Sugar always scrambles to be the first to open and this year won’t be any different. We will be watching for Chris Bates and his team to trigger the snowmaking system on later this evening as temperatures are expected to drop to 22° overnight at the Maggie Valley, North Carolina ski area. Highs on Sunday are forecasted to be around freezing (to maybe a notch warmer) and that could allow for some around-the-clock snowmaking there as well. Temperatures look favorable for overnight snowmaking Wednesday night through the weekend. Monday and Tuesday nights temps might be borderline.

. . ."

Who knows given their webcams are still offline. I honestly don't get Vail resorts policy shutting off the webcams in the offseason. Any news if they are blowing snow?

Looks like Wisp started snowmaking this afternoon

Moe Gull wrote:

Seven Springs if I had to gamble on one. They should start blowing snow on Saturday night and it looks like cold temps from there.

Sugar Mountain in Banner Elk, NC decided Monday, Nov. 14 is opening day.  The high speed lift to the top and the Easy Street beginner lift at the base will be open 9:00am to 4:30pm, with the usual top-to-bottom route from the top (blue to green).  Screenshot below from 8:42am this morning.  Snowmaking started over the weekend and temps were in the low 20s across the NC mountains this morning.

I was joking about Blue Knob opening early, but apparently they're going for next Wednesday the 23rd.  They could beat 7S.

No idea how much they'll have open, but I'm surprised they're being aggressive this year.

superguy, I knew you were..., and this is great news.  Here's the post and it is encouraging to see BK going for it, even with their limited and generally aniquated arsenal.

By far the best stretch of pre-thanksgiving snowmaking weather in recent memory starting this afternoon/evening! Even the more local areas (Bryce, Massanutten, Whitetail, Liberty, Roundtop) should be able to run the guns for extended stretches. 

It will be interesting to see if any of the Vail owned resorts make a push for an early opening or stick to their pre-planned opening dates. My guess is that they will struggle to open earlier given they are less nimble w/staffing (staffing is outsourced to Vail Corporate). 

Thefirewarde wrote:

Cataloochee opened Monday half an hour or so ahead of Sugar's Monday opening. The NC duo definitely got first in the east with a pair of top to bottom Day 1s and about 2000 vertical feet of skiing between them.

 Not that it really matters, but how do you know?  Sugar opened at 9:00 as planned.  I was watching the Cat webcams and I don't think they opened until a bit later.  Originally Cat was only expected to open to mid-station but they had enough snow made to groom out to the top.  I was watching the groomer work between 9:00 and 9:30.

Unofficial Networks only reported about Sugar.  Sugar is better about social media posts than Cataloochee.

The East Coast Ski Season Starts TODAY! (1st Resort Opening)

Timberline just announced this Wednesday Nov 23 as opening/preview day.