I wanna get out on the slopes! The closest possible skiing I can locate are the Catskills resorts (Hunter, Belleare and Windham), which are all about a six hour drive from DC. They all are already opened with a few trails each and appear to be aggressively making snow overnight.

The problem is, I just don't want to drive that far, and can't take any time off from work to go out West. Has anyone heard about any closer possible openings, maybe in the Poconos? Or Seven Springs? Canaan Valley? The weather over the next few days, unfortunately, does not look too promising. The only hope is that weather forecasts more than a day or two ahead are very unreliable.

I looked at Hunter as well for this weekend. What scared me off is that my New York friends claim that the place is absolutely insane on a normal weekend. Given how snow starved everyone is and the limited terrain available, this weekend could be even worse. I think a better bet would be to drive a couple more hours and try for a Western Mass slope such as Jiminy Peak or Brody or even go to Southern VT.

Personally, I'm going to gut it out and wait one more week for Snowshoe to open.

Woah, I thought I was the only one being obsessive about getting some snow in my system. Things are getting desperate. I was supposed to go to Snowshoe last weekend for the opening and Demo day, needless to say that was a no go. Funds will have to be seriously pooled into a trip out west because it doesnt look like the east is going to get it.

Jim

Hunter today is reporting frozen granular with rain in the forecast for tomorrow--again, 6 hours of driving for these conditions is probably not worth it. I think a better bet would be to drive another 1.5 hours and go to Mt. Snow. Snow has some great cruising slopes--a perfect place to get your ski legs back.

I've booked a very reasonable trip to Austria and Slovakia in February through Ski Europe: everyone's terrified to fly so the packages are quite cheap now. You might consider Europe as an alternative to the West. St. Anton has 115 centimeters of snow on the mountain already.

In the meantime, I could really use some practice before tackling the 5000 foot vertical of Valluga. Getting your ski legs in shape on the tamer slopes of the Mid-Atlantic really makes those trips further a-field that much better. I'm still hoping that Snowshoe will have some trails open by the holidays.

I just came back from Hunter and the skiing was very good for the limited terrain. This was on Tuesday and they have been making major snow. I have been told to avoid Hunter on the weekends because of the major crowd problems