Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05
January 11, 2007 issue
AT LAST!
No More Slow Business For Snow Business!
Story by Sam Calhoun
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas—only it’s January.
Everybody always talks about the weather, but lately it has been talked up even more than usual, with temperatures in the mid-50s, even low 60s, over the past couple of weeks. But relief arrived at last with the inches of snow that came on Tuesday.
Tuesday’s vigorous storm dropped six inches of snow on both Beech and Sugar mountains and three inches in Boone, according to reports compiled by Ray Russell of RaysWeather.com.
The storm was nothing short of a miracle to ski resort operators apprehensive about conditions for the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, historically one of the biggest of the season in terms of visitors and economic impact.
“Snowmaking has been hard for everyone this year, but it’s easy to be positive when the weather is like this,” said Reba Moretz of Appalachian Ski Mountain on Tuesday as the snow fell on her resort in Blowing Rock.
Rebounding off a trying but successful Christmas and New Year’s holiday run, all four of the local ski resorts are using the cooler temperatures to rebuild their melting bases by blowing lots of snow.
For reference, the temperature was 15 degrees at Seven Devils and 10 degrees at Beech Mountain Wednesday morning—almost too perfect for snowmaking.
At the beginning of the week, Russell estimated that local snowmakers would be able to blow snow for 60 hours or more on the slopes before temperatures returned to mild around Friday, but Justin Grimes, snowsports director at Hawksnest Resort, reported that his snowmakers have been blowing snow without stopping since Monday morning—amassing more than 70 hours by press time and looking ahead to favorable snowmaking temperatures on Thursday night.
Bold text across the top of the Ski Beech website—www.skibeech.com—provides a synopsis of the attitude of the local ski industry: “We have been told that winter is coming, and we know that…it always does come.”
Russell pegged the beginning of consistent winter temperatures weeks ago.
“Since before Christmas, we have been preaching a pattern shift around mid-January,” wrote Russell. “Expect a prolonged turn to cold beginning somewhere between January 15-18. This time colder than normal weather will be locked in for a month or more; by the end of January, our warm first half of the month will be a distant memory.”
Despite the warm weather holidays, the resort operators still saw plenty of cars in their parking lots.
“We did really good and business was great,” said Sugar Mountain Resort President and General Manager Gunther Jochl about the Christmas and New Year’s holiday. “We fell off a bit from January 2 to 7.”
Sugar Mountain Resort’s snowmakers have been “blowing snow everywhere,” according to Marketing Director Kim Jochl, and the mountain will have “at least seven slopes open” for the upcoming holiday weekend, serviced by four chairlifts.
According to Ski Beech Marketing and Public Relations Director Gil Adams, the resort plans to keep four, if not more, slopes open for this weekend after closing last weekend because of the warmth.
About the holidays at Ski Beech, Adams said, “We were not unhappy about the turnout at all. We’ve had better Christmas seasons and we’ve had worse, but most important, the people who were here all had a great time.”
Adams said that 80 percent or more of the holiday clientele were from Florida and Georgia and “they had all they wanted and all they needed.”
Moretz at Appalachian Ski Mountain thinks the recent downswing in temperatures is “wonderful for MLK weekend and wonderful for the whole area.”
Moretz said that Appalachian closed on Monday after being open for the entire holiday season until Sunday, January 7, because operators “didn’t want to offer those conditions to the public.”
The mountain reopened on Wednesday and plans to offer six slopes, the terrain park, three chairlifts and one conveyor lift for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.
During the holidays at Hawksnest, Grimes reported that his mountain encountered a lot of repeat business and that the volume of customers was “strong” given the conditions. Hawksnest closed on Saturday, January 6, and reopened on Wednesday with the tubing runs, three slopes and three lifts open to the public.
It look’s like Christmas came late. Better late than never.
A Sign Things Are Returning To Normal
Sugar Mountain Resort will host the 12th annual National Winter Trails Day on Saturday, January 20. The event was postponed from an earlier date because of the slow arrival of winter. The National Winter Trails Day offers children 8 and older and adults new to snowsports the chance to try snowshoeing for free. Snowshoe rental and guided tours are free and will be available at 9:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. Participants should meet at the ski and snowboard school building at least 15 minutes prior to the tour time. Participation is limited and is based on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, call 828-898-4521.
Weather Archives From Appalachian Ski Mountain
To illustrate the unseasonably warm temperatures that local ski resorts have faced, take a look at the last two weeks of weather archives provided by Dr. Ray Russell for Appalachian Ski Mountain.
Week of December 24 to December 31
December 25—45.8 degrees (high), 31.9 degrees (low)
December 26—40.9 degrees (high), 26.3 degrees (low)
December 27—37.6 degrees (high), 22.7 degrees (low)
December 28—46 degrees (high), 33.7 degrees (low)
December 29—55.4 degrees (high), 39.3 degrees (low)
December 30—51.3 degrees (high), 38.2 degrees (low)
December 31—52.8 degrees (high), 43.1 degrees (low)
Average temperature for the month of December—40 degrees
Week of January 1 to January 7
January 1—57.6 degrees (high), 29 degrees (low)
January 2—51.4 degrees (high), 25 degrees (low)
January 3—51.6 degrees (high), 37.8 degrees (low)
January 4—56.5 degrees (high), 40.9 degrees (low)
January 5—55.9 degrees (high), 47.9 degrees (low)
January 6—53.1 degrees (high), 44.5 degrees (low)
January 7—49.1 degrees (high), 41.6 degrees (low)
Average temperature so far for the month of January—40 degrees
This week so far
January 8—48.5 degrees (high), 25.7 degrees (low)
January 9—35.5 degrees (high), 20.3 degrees (low)
January 10—22.1 degrees (high), 16.1 degrees (low)