DCSki Blue Knob gathering
February 23, 2007
After reading about all the great skiing and good times had by JohnL, JimK, tromano and queenoftheslopes, I thought to myself, why should they have all the fun. Anyone up for meeting up at Blue Knob? Ideally we could do this after they get more snow, but I know it is hard to time things sometimes...anyway I was thinking the first or second weekend in march. What do y'all think?
Not to knock Blue Knob, but how about a West Virginia gathering sometime? I plan to be at Snowshoe March 16-19. Other weekends I would be game for CV or TL (have not been to either mtn before). I guess I am looking for a location that is more reasonable for VA/NC people to get to.
I am up at Wintergreen once a week, midweek, and sometimes on Sunday afternoons too. Be glad to meet up with DCskiers then also (in fact I am shooting to be there tomorrow -- Friday).
Yeah,
I guess Blue Knob is a little further afield then I usually go. According to mapquest, it is about 4 hrs from Cville, as opposed to the 3 hrs it takes me to get to snowshoe or CV/TL (or the 1 hr to Wintergreen or Massanutten). Having said that, I am really curious about Blue Knob and would like to go there if possible. And I guess there is no reason we couldn't arrange a BK gathering one week and a WV gathering some other week!
I'd like to get back to BK myself this season. Can't make first two weekends in March, poor
jimmy, I'll be in Utah on business
3/4 til 3/10.
Its all good to me. Hitting the bumps on extrovert at blueknob on a nice warm spring day is awesome. If you want to ski the glades at blue knob act soon. The terrain is better than timberline and if the snow is right its really fun.
I am interested in skiing Tline again this season. I havent been there in a while and they always have great late season snow.
'voting for the southern branch of dcski, and will be at WG the mar 2-4 weekend, who else?
Wasn't there typically a DCSki gathering at TLine during the "Snowy Luau" weekend (March 18th)? I may try to make it up there that Saturday.
Tim,
Based on past years experience, how long do you think the glades will be skiable at BK. I understand this is totally weather dependent, but taking into account the coverage last weekend and the current mid-range forecasts, can you make a guess?
BTW, here's a 10-day forcast I pulled from weather.com:
http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/USPA0288?from=search_10day
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Yeah,
I guess Blue Knob is a little further afield then I usually go. According to mapquest, it is about 4 hrs from Cville, as opposed to the 3 hrs it takes me to get to snowshoe or CV/TL (or the 1 hr to Wintergreen or Massanutten). Having said that, I am really curious about Blue Knob and would like to go there if possible. And I guess there is no reason we couldn't arrange a BK gathering one week and a WV gathering some other week!
I'd certainly consider a Blue Knob gathering on any date 
, but I'm noticing late season ticket rates kick-in at Tline & Wisp on Mar 5 and CV on Mar 3. Maybe a Saturday at Timberline (or somewhere else) and a Sunday at BK on same weekend (Mar 10&11?) would catch a number of folks for one or both days? With Tline regulars providing après ski instruction? Hard to say about the glades at BK. Some years they barely open, but that long range forecast looks pretty decent. No huge meltdowns, even without the glades there is some exceptional challenge there.
Let me just say that blueknob is the snowbird of the midatlantic. Its awesome terrain that gets skied out by 2PM on a busy weekend. The natural snow trails are so narrow that 50 people going down a trail will change it from untracked powder, to scraped of rock gnar and bumps.
Last weekend the glades were well covered with a pretty dense durable base layer. A few freeze thaw cycles or a little light rain might actually help to consolidate that base even more. If it says cold at night it should last for a good while and won't get skied off easily. I think crowd level, Which should go down now that we are past Prez weekend, even more than weather will determine how those trails ski this weekend let alone in 2-3 weeks. If they keep getting little shots of 6-12" of snow every week it will really extend the life of the natural snow trails and the glades.
I think the real attraction of blueknob for an early to mid-march gathering is spring bumps on extrovert. The glades and other natural snow trails like d-trail, shortway , and edgeset would be gravy.
I'm going to try for Blue Knob this weekend. I doubt that things will improve unless, as tromano says, we get another foot. What's on the ground now is here now. It could disappear in a matter of hours.
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'voting for the southern branch of dcski, and will be at WG the mar 2-4 weekend, who else?
Might be there Mar 4 (Sunday) if the weather is good that day and my wife wants to go. Maybe we can meet up for some runs (your kids can show me some Colorado tricks). My season pass isn't valid until 12:30pm on Sundays, so we ski the afternoon (which is nice, the crowds diminish quite a bit). We wanted to go this Sunday, but the weather looks lousy -- so I am headed up tomorrow (Fri) instead.
As appealing as an Extrovert day with friends would be, it is trumped by a trip to VT to ski with my daughter and grandsons, 9, 6, and 3, all skiers. The 3 yr. old is by far the best skier of the bunch at that tender age and his enthusiasm level is through the roof. It is his second full season on skis.
