Mid-Atlantic Mid-Atlantic Conditions, Resorts, Meet-ups, and Stoke! 2018/2019

[Coach13]

My pool is available if the local tesorts are too crowded.

 

[cantunamunch]

Ski to work time

 

[scottyb]

From what I hear, it's not a big deal for kids to have snow days any more as many systems have classes on line.

Heck why even go to school any more?

WT Ken always said, Go early, leave early.

 

[RichieRich]

You're probably right... but I find it funny that it's too snowy to go to school, but not too snowy to get to the ski resort.

What's funny is: Owned a place at Snowshoe for 7 years, but couldn't go skiing if it were snowing! LOL 55W was too treacherous a drive. One bud rode the guardrail on the backside like a pinball (put his body man's kid thru college with that repair). Saw a car in front of me blown sideways on to the opposite shoulder! Had 3 "incidents"during the time I owned it. Was happy to get 50 cents on the dollar just to unload it.

 

[Coach13]

What's funny is: Owned a place at Snowshoe for 7 years, but couldn't go skiing if it were snowing! LOL 55W was too treacherous a drive. One bud rode the guardrail on the backside like a pinball (put his body man's kid thru college with that repair). Saw a car in front of me blown sideways on to the opposite shoulder! Had 3 "incidents"during the time I owned it. Was happy to get 50 cents on the dollar just to unload it.

Whoever coined the phrase “you can’t get there from here” had Snowshoe in mind. Place it awful to get to on a good day. As to the real estate, I know about 10 folks who took a big hit just to unload their places there.

 

[scottyb]

What's funny is: Owned a place at Snowshoe for 7 years, but couldn't go skiing if it were snowing! LOL 55W was too treacherous a drive. One bud rode the guardrail on the backside like a pinball (put his body man's kid thru college with that repair). Saw a car in front of me blown sideways on to the opposite shoulder! Had 3 "incidents"during the time I owned it. Was happy to get 50 cents on the dollar just to unload it.

On the egress of the last storm I skied there it was 4WD all the way to Judy Gap. Coming down off the mtn down to Cass had no less than 6 vehicles in the ditches.

 

[dbostedo]

I went XC skiing today myself for about an hour, in about 9 inches snow in my neighborhood.
With Fed Govt in DC closed tomorrow I guess I will be going skiing Something tells me Whitetail will be a madhouse because all schools are also closed, so I may try Bryce for four hours.

Hope Bryce worked out... Whitetail looks crowded and bumpy on the webcams... I've rarely seen the parking lots this full. This is the top of Angel Drop :

 

[Miller]

Went to Liberty on Sunday with the kids. Took about an extra 35 minutes to get up there and an extra 45 minutes to get home.

They had everything but 3 trails open and I think every gun they had was running. I have no idea what a flight deck on an aircraft carrier sound like, but those guns were loud. Additionally, visibility was definitely reduced due to the snow guns. Kids started to complain about them, but I had to reminded them that 5 days ago, everything we were skiing down was brown.

Conditions overall were pretty good. Both the manmade and fresh were pretty wet, so the trails were kind getting "lumpy".

The crowds weren't bad until a little later, but I heard Whitetail was packed.

Pretty amazing what they were able to get open in just a few days

 

[Laurel Hill Crazie]

Looks like some technical problem at Laurel, non snowmaking at Laurel. Maybe more terrain by the weekend.

 

[SCWVA]

What's funny is: Owned a place at ....55W was too treacherous a drive. One bud rode the guardrail on the backside like a pinball (put his body man's kid thru college with that repair). Saw a car in front of me blown sideways on to the opposite shoulder! Had 3 "incidents"during the time I owned it. ......

RT 55 was closed for bit last night at Great North Mountain. When it opened, they only let 4wd vehicles go. I was the first vehicle over the top.

Canaan Valley skied really well. Lots of fresh tracks to be had.

 

[pause]

I just got back from Whitetail. I had low expectations, but it was surprisingly descent from 830-1100 before any type of crowd formed. We quit at 1:00...not as bad as the webcam above when we left, but I believe it by the rate of people continuing to show up.

Anyway, upper lot was filling up when we arrived at 830, which looked like a bad omen, but we booted up, bought Tix, and on the lift by 845. Couple of laps on the high speed quad...smooth, soft and fast on Angel Drop and Home Run. Then over to Exhibition...really soft and fast. Cranked about 4 or 5 laps before swapping out the rock skis to some nicer skis (95mm) because coverage was good. Everything was groomed except just under the lift on Exhibition and Limelight. Bumps there were fun and soft by about 1030. Rocks started to show pretty fast on the Exhibition bumps once people started to ski them, which is too bad. Never waited in a line at Expert Quad. Line started around 11 or 1130 on the express quad, but still only 5-7 minutes. Got super crowded after 12, but mostly on Angel Drop. Exhibition, Angel Drop, Jib, Drop In, and Limelight all skiing well. Our one run on Snowdancer was bad. Last lap at 1245 was a long line and crowded slopes (except Home Run because of the snowmaking I guess...good fast turns for us). Pretty good day for hooky from DC (and first day back in Mid-Atlantic in 5 years).

 

[ksampson3]

Snow Dancer shouldn't have been open. We skied it at 8:45 am and it was a scary combo of death cookies, boilerplate, and soft lumps of blown snow that wanted to take your skis off. Like pause said, the rest of the mountain was skiing really well.

 

[Jim Kenney]

I missed you guys at W/T, pretty good crowd, but I had fun. Trip report with a few photos here: https://www.pugski.com/threads/whitetail-pa-14-jan-2019.13472/#post-310579

 

[wgo]

Snowshoe on Monday with my son. Generally really good conditions, and a few places off to the sides of trails with some deeper snow if you knew where to look. They are trying to let moguls form on Knot Bumper and Sawmill but at this point it is just widely dispersed piles of snow with large sections of skied off areas. Need some more natural to fix this. Crowds pretty low, certainly less than what the resorts closer to DC saw.

 

[RikkiBobbi]

Can anyone comment on Wisp this year? Thinking about heading there this weekend. Never been, so looking at the snow/trail report doesn't give me a lot of insight aside from just the numbers.

Or....is there a better place conditions wise within 3-4 hrs of D.C. for a quick road trip?

 

[Coach13]

Can anyone comment on Wisp this year? Thinking about heading there this weekend. Never been, so looking at the snow/trail report doesn't give me a lot of insight aside from just the numbers.

Or....is there a better place conditions wise within 3-4 hrs of D.C. for a quick road trip?

Wisp or Seven Springs. They likely have similar conditions but both should be able to get more runs open by the weekend with the cold temps and snow in the forecast the next few days. Both will be crowded Id think with it being a holiday weekend.

 

[RikkiBobbi]

Wisp or Seven Springs. They likely have similar conditions but both should be able to get more runs open by the weekend with the cold temps and snow in the forecast the next few days. Both will be crowded Id think with it being a holiday weekend.

Agree on crowded. Thinking about making it just a 1-day roadtrip to or maybe ski open-10 or 11 on Saturday to avoid huge crowds.

 

[Jim Kenney]

Consider Bryce Mtn, VA if you are day-tripping and want to avoid big holiday weekend crowds. It is never too bad. The hill is smaller, but good for families in beg-int levels. And they have a good snowmaking system for usually comparatively good trail conditions.

 

[RikkiBobbi]

Any other opinions? Looking like A lot of the area locations will get snow Thursday night forward. I'm kind of leaning toward just blitzing Whitetail on Friday, assuming that Saturday will be crushed.

How is Wisp in general? I've never been nor talked to anyone who has. My only experience in this area is Whitetail.

 

[Jim Kenney]

Whitetail and Liberty are generally the busiest two places within easy day trip (80-90 mins) of Wash DC. As you know, all mid-Atlantic ski areas are relatively quiet on normal weekdays. Crowds on prime weekends are usually a little more manageable at Wisp (3 hrs from DC) than Whitetail, but Wisp can be pretty busy too. If the terrain is open, several chairlifts on the “backside” of Wisp are often good for crowd avoidance on busy days. In fair weather Wisp is one of the most scenic ski areas in the mid-Atlantic with nice views of 3900 acre Deep Creek Lake. It skis bigger than the 600-700’ vertical might imply because trails go off in three directions from the summit with good variety and they have a good snowmaking system. I’m sure it also averages more annual natural snow than Whitetail.


Old Wisp trip reports: http://www.dcski.com/articles/1162

http://www.dcski.com/articles/1056