I was the first person at the ropes near Shavers this AM.  Obviously, the terrain was limited but there was A LOT of snow on the open trails.  They blew snow all day long which I applaud but the human popsicle machine is not for me.  It was very winter like here with cold temps and wind.  The sun peaked out this afternoon and it looks like the people were enjoying themselves.

OBSERVATION - SHOCK

I shut down REAL early and putzed around the village.  While looking at skis in the Mtn Adventures ski shop I witnessed the following.  A guy came in and asked for a refund on his lift ticket.  He said it was his first time snowbaording and all was doing was falling and feared he would never make it to the bottom to use the lift.  They sent him to the Depot to see what they can do.  THE KICKER ..... he said he just bought his ticket about 30 minutes ago and  ..... DID NOT WANT TO WASTE $90.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  They are selling tickets for full price and people bought them.  I asked they shop guys and they said you would not believe how many tickets they sold today.  WOW, just WOW.

"~NEWS~"

Don't hold me accountable for this if it is false but a reliable person told me they are "thinking about" OPENING THE GOLF COURSE from 12/26 - 1/3.  I asked 100 times if she was messing with me and she said no.  If true, that tells me they are extremely bearish on the forecast for the rest of the year.  

I'll try to post up some pics when time permits because it did look nice here today.

Got in midday and did two runs - snow guns in the face were no fun.  Five year old daughter wasn't enjoying it much.  Lift lines didn't look too long though (10 mins) around 2pm.  

Tomorrow looks to be much improved as they put down quite a bit of snow.  It's cold here right now. 

Thanks a lot for the reports.  At least there's skiing somewhere in the Mid-Atlantic!  

Please forward any rumors about the possibiities of areas open this Monday-Tuesday.

Woody

The following is from snowshoes facebook page. They are opening the golf course... While we’re enjoying these cold, snowmaking temperatures and some natural snowfall, we are fully aware of the not-so-wintry forecast for next week through the holidays. We realize our skiable terrain will be limited, and we are expanding our off-slope activities in order to help provide a fantastic experience for all of our holiday guests. If you’ve got room, go ahead and bring those golf clubs, and maybe even your mountain bike(cross-country). Rest assured that a fantastic vacation is still available for you and your family here at Snowshoe. Check out the full slate of activities, including RZR Tours, Sporting Clays, Golf, Disc Golf, Mountain Bike Tours, Whiskey 101, Yoga, Art Classes, plenty of holiday activities and shopping, and more by clicking here -> http://www.snowshoemtn.com/events-and-activities/next-week-on-the-mountain.aspx

AndyGene wrote:

The following is from snowshoes facebook page. They are opening the golf course...    

I'll be damned.  It is friggin cold here right now .... 

Dec. 15 came and went . . . and Cupp didn't open because Mother Nature didn't cooperate.  Click on the link to see what happened as a result.

The beard is gone

Snowshoe said on Facebook today that Silver Creek will open Monday morning, to include night skiing.

I was hoping they would open Spruce today but no go.  The guns are roaring at 7:30 AM.  They are taking full advantage of temps as this may be it for a while for snowmaking.  Sadly, these few trails will be the lineup for Christmas week.  What a shame.

I'll going to hold off until they shut the guns down if I go out at all.  It's not like I've never been here or will never come back.

 

Just in from spending all morning on the slopes.  Really happy with what they had given the limited snow.  Guns stopped by 11am.

The weather today was gorgeous - low wind and the sun was shining.  They opened powderridge powder monkey today and the lift lines were pretty light (5-10 mins on all).  Snow quality was great.  

Only downside was the choke points were really crowded.  Very hard to navigate but here were lots of areas that were pretty open.

base loins pretty deep so it should last a while. 

Sschneid- you were correct, they did open powder ridge lift.  I rode it once just for a change of pace.  Agree with all points you made.   I don't ski that side of the mountain much but that choke point where you could go left or right on Heisler was a mess.  All the beginners turned right and promptly fell down.  That was tough sledding in that area.  I enjoyed cruising down the old terrain park area.  I managed to catch it twice when there was hardly anyone on it. 

I managed several runs from about 10 - 11:30.  Crowded but fun ..... until some rookie clipped be from behind.  I took a nice spill.  He crawled over to gather his yard sale and apologized.  I said, no worries but told him to be careful.  That's when I knew it was time to go home.  No sense in getting hurt while playing "Dodge the Jerry's" the rest of the day.

That will do it for me until 2016.  Mrs BD needs sand in her toes inthe sand so it's off to Myrtle Beach for Christmas break.

I was out there this weekend, Saturday and Sunday both. Any day skiing is a good day, but some days are better than others. Saturday and Sunday were not better than others, but big kudos to Snowshoe for getting anything open.

Saturday was cold, and the snow guns blew all day. It was crowded, and conditions were not good, a lot of icy spots at the end of the day. We skied 9-10:30 and 2:30-4. Lift lines were short all day, although Powder Monkey was much longer than Ballhooter, which made sense because the wind and snow making were very bad at the top of Ballhooter, it is so flat there and the wind was blowing against you, it made things particularly miserable.

Sunday was a beautiful day weather wise, and the snow was in much better shape. It was also more crowded and scary. With 3 lifts open, lift lines were mercifully short(er) than they often are. We were out from 9-11, 12-3 on Sunday. 

I can't believe people would pay $90 for that, crazy. People must like to ski even more than I do, it seemed like the lessons were hopping, I saw a ton of groups out there. The Snowshoe ski team was practicing too. Not gates, but there were several groups with different coaches. There were some very strange, prolonged lift stoppages on both Powder Monkey and Ballhooter on Sunday afternoon. One on Powder Monkey must have been 15 minutes, and this one was not caused by skiers wiping out. We were at the top of the lift, literally the next chair to unload, and the lift stopped. The liftie was on the phone, calling down the the bottom, and then eventually someone else showed up, and even scurried up the ladder to go into the mechanical area above the lift mechanism. The window was open, so we could kind of hear, my 7 year old daughter misheard him say something, and she asked me: "What's it mean 'the bucking e-brake keeps going off?'" I told her I wasn't sure.

My tally for the weekend:

Times I got taken out by a snowboarder who didn't stop to see if I was OK or apologize: 1

Times I had an out-of-control snowboarder crash into my legs but only he fell: 1

Times I had a skier run over the fronts of my skis while I was sking: 2

Times I heard someone say (to someone else) "I heard you say to go right, but I was pointing my sticks left": 1

Times I heard this conversation on the lift: "I didn't get hazed too bad, though."   "Me, either. One time I got hit the face with pudding." : 1

 

 

Here are some Snowshoe Pics from the weekend.  I think we all agree on what we experienced / conditions and the pics don't lie.

SATURDAY:

SUNDAY:

We road Saturday and Sunday morning.  The conditions were pretty good considering, kudos to the  snow makers.  We called it a day around 11 AM because the slopes were getting so busy at the choke points (lines we're not bad).  I wish we were able to ride Silver Creek but had to get back to work. 

I heard they were going to open the mountain bike trails...that is a smart move.  My son said we should go mountain biking after we were done riding.  Dancing and Praying for cold weather to return.

Here at SS this Friday morning.  So far the weather is great - hope teh rains holds off until LATE today.  I'll report back later on conditions.

My husband and I had a nice day there yesterday. Sunshine and blue skies for our first day out this season. Not a lot of runs open and a lot of beginners later on in the morning but we enjoyed our day. Didn't take long for the legs to get tired though, gotta work on that.

Pretty nice day here at SS.  Crowds were light and snow was good.  Cloudy and breezy until about 11:30.  Started sleeting around 11:30 so we took a break.  Then it changed to snow so we went back out and ruined it for everyone as it changed to light rain then the typical SS mist.  We called it a day about 2:30  Grabhammer was a blast.

THEGOOD

What slopes are open have tons of snow.  Coverage is exceptional.

THE BAD

Powder Rdige and Powder Monkey lifts are slow as we all know.  They suck when they stop 2 - 3 each ride up.  The opens trails over there add some variety but those lifts .....

THE UGLY

I'd say 1/2 the basin area is open with fantastic coverage.  The other half has a long way to go.  You can basically see grass thru the snow that fell on Monday.  I saw no evidence of snowmaking efforts on the grass trails which was sort of a bummer.

Here are a few random pics.

Tons of snow at the top near Ballhooter

Skidder was empty at 9 AM

We were waiting at 9 to hit Spruuuuuuuce!

Natural snow under Ballhooter

Great coverage under P Monkey

Slim Pickens on Choker

Failed pic to get Jr in the air.

More slim pickens on upper B Hooter

Looks like you owned the place today!

I don't blame them for not blowing snow today.  It's marginal temps with high humidity so the effeciency would be low with no net impact to coverage or train count. Then factor in the ideal conditions coming next week....not worth their cost.

Snowshoe's facebook page "

Snowshoe Mountain Good question Currently, we're focusing our snowmaking on several key areas. We're going full force on Cupp Run from top to bottom, and on Upper Flume and Lower Hootenanny in order to get the Soaring Eagle lift up and running. We're also currently making more snow at Silver Creek.

"

I was wondering when they were going to try and get Soaring Eagle open.... those trails never seem to be that crowded.... but the Ski in/out lodging over there I suspect needs that lift to book rooms. They also said in an earlier post the target for Cupp was going to be Friday.

 

rbrtlav wrote:

Snowshoe's facebook page "

Snowshoe Mountain Good question Currently, we're focusing our snowmaking on several key areas. We're going full force on Cupp Run from top to bottom, and on Upper Flume and Lower Hootenanny in order to get the Soaring Eagle lift up and running. We're also currently making more snow at Silver Creek.

"

I was wondering when they were going to try and get Soaring Eagle open.... those trails never seem to be that crowded.... but the Ski in/out lodging over there I suspect needs that lift to book rooms. They also said in an earlier post the target for Cupp was going to be Friday.

 

With MLK weekend, they're going to need as many lifts and trails open as they can get.

High of 1 degree forecast for Monday?  Brrrrrr.

eggraid wrote:

rbrtlav wrote:

Snowshoe's facebook page "

Snowshoe Mountain Good question Currently, we're focusing our snowmaking on several key areas. We're going full force on Cupp Run from top to bottom, and on Upper Flume and Lower Hootenanny in order to get the Soaring Eagle lift up and running. We're also currently making more snow at Silver Creek.

"

I was wondering when they were going to try and get Soaring Eagle open.... those trails never seem to be that crowded.... but the Ski in/out lodging over there I suspect needs that lift to book rooms. They also said in an earlier post the target for Cupp was going to be Friday.

 

With MLK weekend, they're going to need as many lifts and trails open as they can get.

They usually get that open way before Christmas.  This is just a rotten no good horrible year.   

 

Soaring Eagle open today!

Is the lift ticket price for Monday (MLK Day) $79 or $89?  If you go to buy online it says $79, despite it being a holiday.

Also when did Snowshoe's lift ticket price structure become so simple?  They don't even offer a night ticket option?  I remember they used to have more options (albeit with completely token discounts..).