Guns Blazing, Lifts Spinning, Terrain Opening Throughout East
Dec 3rd, 2008 by admin
News from OnTheSnow.com
Nov 25, 2008 Roger Leo, Associate Editor
Get a full Snow Report here.
Eastern ski areas from Quebec to North Carolina roared into operation starting in mid-November when cold and snowy weather moved in.
Some areas chose to stick to planned opening dates, but used the cold snap to lay down more snow.
Others decided that snowstorms of late October combined with early opening of even limited terrain would drive skier/rider enthusiasm for the season ahead, and took that route.
Mount Snow opened a tiny terrain park with half a dozen features on Launch Pad Oct. 19, free for skiers and riders, after temperatures dipped into the lower 20s overnight allowing the area’s PoleCat fan guns to lay down three inches of snow.
That move highlighted the upside of Peak Resorts’ strategy of deploying fan guns - most of them pole-mounted - that allow snowmaking in the often marginal temperatures and humidity of early season.
Killington opened, closed, and reopened on Nov. 19.
North Carolina and other parts of the Mid Atlantic region are enjoying historic November conditions. A new inch of snow fell on the Maggie Valley of North Carolina and Cataloochee Ski Area opened for business Oct. 28.
“We’re open for the duration and won’t close the lifts down until March 29,” said Cataloochee’s Tammy Brown at the time.
Snowshoe Mountain Resort in West Virginia opened Nov. 21 in the wake of a winter storm that dropped 31 inches on its slopes. The resort is on track to receive 5 feet of snow in November, with snowmaking on top of that almost around the clock since Nov. 15, in a most auspicious start to its 35th season.
Other resorts in the Mid Atlantic region, New England, and Quebec began opening a week before the projected Thanksgiving target.
In New England, that was thanks to an old-fashioned cold snap that hit mid-month, reminding longtime residents of days gone by when ponds froze sufficiently hard for skating on Thanksgiving morning.
That hasn’t happened in several decades, but it happened this year.
Get a full Snow Report here.
[...] BlogNetNews.com Ã?» Colorado wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]