Dear Winter Warlock,

Please grace the mid-Atlantic region with the much-needed cold temperatures, low-pressure systems and bitter-cold nights necessary for abundant natural snowfall and ideal snow-making temperatures. While DCski members blithely debate vertical, acreage, and snow making capacity at their local resorts, current conditions around the region look very, very bleak. Even our friends in Snowshoe, West Virginia are beginning to get nervous. We humbly implore your favor for plentiful snowfall, bitter cold nights and loads of happy gliding across our delightful Appalachian glades in the not too distant future.

When you plant a flower, and a dog shits on it, you dont pray that it rains and washes away the filth and fertilizes it at the same time.  Or maybe you do.

Nutting is shit, and he shit all over 7S and HV this season.  The capacity and opportunity was there to open 50% of HV and SV with snowmaking.  Instead, you have essentially 1 slope and 1 trail for HV and 1 slope and 2 trails for 7S for closer to $100 / lift ticket.  Anyone that argues this is a corporate parrot.  Bakaaaw!  They are taking their profit and could give .00000000000009 of a shit what happens to the resorts herein.  Their message of the sale was full of empty platitudes.  

The bag holders (season pass holders) are left rubbing their smooth brains wondering if it will get better....and they keep reuping.  

4 years ago I stopped, after 'a long time'.  I purchase as I go and have NO problem taking a pit stop after my first run to get a cash pass.  I would encourage everyone to just go elsewhere for their disappointment w/ less drama.  Holiday valley, not so disappointing but it does get busy and icy.  South/north of the highlands has so much to offer. Snowshoe obviously is 8 steps above 7s.  Go north a half a day, and enjoy a much better experience or better get on a plane, take a nap and ski for real. 

Edit: before that asshat nutting bought hv.  They competed for open date and acre open  between 7s and HV.  HV keep 7S on its toes.  HV had better snowmaking (sorry , it's  fact...that cant be disputed ). Ever been at 7s when they have been spraying pure water from their fixed guns? Almost laughable.  HV made better snow, more of it, and opened sooner and had more open. Then nutfuk took over and slowly squeezed them to comply with the single slope until Jan method of running a resort.  

At some point in Jan, we will get a very cold snap and snowmaking will open up across both resorts and all the slopes you can think of.  And everyone will say HURRAY....but forget they were lazy and cheap early season.  Let's not forget that mid feb they start pulling the lines and thinking about how they can dwindle down operation costs/man power for the season.  We are only 1.5 months away from them operationally thinking this is the end of the season. :) Highlands pass worth upwards of 700 usd?  LOL hell no. Now that Epic is taking over, lol they are going to need to get creative with profit pulling. 

HVdad wrote:

Dear Winter Warlock,

Please grace the mid-Atlantic region with the much-needed cold temperatures, low-pressure systems and bitter-cold nights necessary for abundant natural snowfall and ideal snow-making temperatures. While DCski members blithely debate vertical, acreage, and snow making capacity at their local resorts, current conditions around the region look very, very bleak. Even our friends in Snowshoe, West Virginia are beginning to get nervous. We humbly implore your favor for plentiful snowfall, bitter cold nights and loads of happy gliding across our delightful Appalachian glades in the not too distant future.

Couldn't agree more, Snowsmith, I've lived a HV for 10+ years and under both Buncher and Nutting management the great snowmaking teams have worked hard to get the mountain open as soon as the weather permits. It's the weather.

snowsmith wrote:

Extra Grumpy - I guess you don't follow the weather. There is no way 7S or HV could be more open more than they are. That is just more conspiracy BS lacking in fact. I am no Nutting fan but they made snow when ever conditions allowed. Maybe it was Qanon. Or the snow was stolen. Or it was rigged, No, it was the weather. 

Denis wrote:

I suspect that this is going to be (will continue to be) one of those winters with wild excursions in the jet stream and in temperatures.  Expect an eastward shift in what has been happening in the Sierra and Cascades.  It might take a few weeks but I think that folks in the eastern half of the country will experience an extended run of bitter cold and snow before the winter is over.  Patience.

 I call Mary "The Predictor" - she always can look into her crystal ball (she is a witch but in a nice way; a good witch) and she says this is going to be like 2014 in the Tahoe area - witch - heh out here it shall be epic!

Snowshoe opened their golf course the week after Christmas in 2015.  One day it hit 70 degrees. It was miserable.   

Thefirewarde wrote:

Looks like maybe there's some weather on the way. The winter of '15 was worse, I think Snowshoe and Wisp had bunny hills open over Christmas? Basically nobody got any terrain to speak of before January 2, where this year most resorts were able to operate, albeit on limited terrain, over most of the Christmas holiday week and they'll be closed for an extended weekend.

Here's a link to a post from the first week of Jan. 2016, when wintergreen finally opened for the season:

https://www.dcski.com/forum/view_message.php?message_id=85794#85794

Meteorologist Chris Bailey from Kentuckyweathercenter.com is confident that this winter is very similar to the winter of 1984/1985. Copied below are the temperature records for Pittsburgh, Pa for the months of January and February 1985. If that is true, we can expect a very cold January and February. :

 As others have said have had some other bad starts to the Winter when resorts didn't open for a long time, but for me this is the first Winter I can remember where most have opened some terrain (and others like Timberline a lot of terrain) and then had so many have to close completely into January with the only ones in the area still open being Bryce, Snowshoe and 7 Springs with the other 10 or more all having to close down and some completely losing all of their snow except for a few patches.    Luckily it looks like all will benefit this week from natural snow and good snowmaking weather so hopefully the rest of the season will be much, much better.

PonceWV wrote:

Is this the worst beginning of the season you can remember?  Been away from snowboarding for almost a decade, got back on the board a few years ago.  Didn’t pay attention to weather trends when I wasn’t riding, this season has turned me into an amateur meteorologist.  The web cams I’ve been watching, from Western NY to Western NC, don’t lie. 7 of 9 mountains I’ve ridden are not operating (Laurel Mtn. has yet to open), and 2 are open with very limited trails. Out West is getting 17’, I’d be happy with 1.7”. 

Sounds like more snow for NoVA/DC coming soon.  Could be another 3-4 inches in the city.

More importantly, going to be plenty cold the next two weeks for snowmaking every night and into quite a few mornings.  MLK Weekend is looking good!

Ski Southeast Forecast For 1/4/2022: Better Late Than Never Winter!