The kids and I will be going to Canaan this weekend and hope to ski. Does anyone know which trails are projected to be open on Saturday through Tuesday?

I checked with Timberline and they aren't going to make any predictions.

Given that they are not making snow right now on Dew Drop, Upper Thunder Draft, and Upper Almost Heaven, my prediction is that the resort will only have one additional top to bottom option opened this weekend: Salamander, a nice beginner trail. The other top to bottom options will be White Lightning (black) and Silver Streak (double black on natural snow). More natural snow might allow the resort to open more double black terrain--maybe Off the Wall.

Canaan Valley has one top to bottom: Valley Vista.

If you enjoy Nordic, White Grass is the best cross country ski area in region and should be great this weekend with the new snow.

If you get really bored, you could always day trip it to Snowshoe (1.5-2 hours). Snowshoe is nearly at 100 percent.

[This message has been edited by johnfmh (edited 12-16-2003).]

What's Timberline charging for lift tickets now? Planning a day trip to 7springs Thursday, driving to timberline Friday afternoon & plan to ski friday nite & saturday. I love Timberline; i hate the way they (don't) open.

Prices are posted here:

www.skitimberline.com

I used to go to Canaan and Timberline several times a year. Both of them have a real problem getting (and keeping) anything open. I went about a week after some awesome snow and T-Line had Off the Wall, The Drop, Silver Streak, and Thunder Draft ALL CLOSED. I've decided it's just not worth it. I take my business to Snowshoe which is a MUCH safer bet!

-Warren-

If the resort wants to survive, it will have to improve its snowmaking capacity over the next few years. Snowshoe, Wisp, and 7 Springs have raised the bar for snowmaking west of the Allegheny Front and Timberine needs to keep up or it will see most of its skiers going to the other mountains.

To me, this should be the hightest priority of the mountain (ahead of opening the Cherry Glades and increasing uphill capacity). You can't have skiing without snow. It's that simple.

Johnfmh makes a very good point - Wisp and 7Springs are roughly 1000' lower at the base than is Timberline, yet both are far ahead of Timberline in terms of % of terrain open. To top it off Whitegrass (which I believe has zero snowmaking) is right next door to Timberline and Canaan, and they currently have all 50 KM open......go figure.....

I think Whitegrass sits squarely in between Canaan & Timberline:

http://www.whitegrass.com/downloads/bigmap.jpeg

Timberline does have all 17km of backcountry open so they have benefitted from the natural stuff just like Whitegrass.

According to the timberline website they will most likely have Salamander open this weekend which is a big deal for them. That being the case they can move all the snow guns off of Salamander onto other slopes.

I think it would best for all of us to just learn to adapt to the resorts we have been given. We know that snowshoe and 7springs are the best pre-season bets. We know that timberline and others get a slow start. We know that certain resorts are great in the mid-season and that certain resorts are always open later than others.

I think we could just change the dates on most of our posts and we'd be saying the same thing every year. Should we bitch and moan? Yes. Because it makes us feel better when we are sitting in our cubes looking out the window at the snow. Most of us have our weather page set to 26260 or WVZ046
or whatever our favorite resort is. We don't have the luxury of living in CO or Utah where the hardest part of planning our trip involves wether we take our mid-fats or fats with us.

I am just glad we have a forum to discuss these things because god knows my co-workers can't deal with it.

-Doug

Once Salamander is finished, a lot of resources will be available for other terrain. Salamander is 2 miles long and very wide in sections. It requires a lot snowmaking resources to open that trail but it's an important draw for beginners so the resort works hard to get it open quickly.

How far apart is Timberline and Canaan? Any private properties between T-line and Canaan? I have a vague memory of what Canaan looks like. I 've been to T-line before. I just can't remember how much mountain land sitting between T-line and Canaan. I was wondering how much trouble it is to have T-line and Canaan merge together into one large resort.