Melancholy time. This was, in my estimation, the perfect ski season. December started steady then the big pre Christmas dump to set up what would be a bottomless base as temps rose just enough to get some melting without too much damage. In the mountains, it started to snow, snow again, and snow some more, building the pack. It was the February of Ullr's greatness. Continuous dumpage. Pow pow as deep as we have ever seen it. Then came March with a blizzard to boot! Ahhhh.... Sunshine... warmer temps..." schweet California sunshine, ooo... have another hit..." planting and creating the best spring conditons and corn we have experienced in years.

Too bad it's time to put the perfect season to rest... Winter of 2010, RIP and thank you.

I'll be finishing out the season at t-line over the weekend. As usual, we'll toast Ullr with cold IPAs and other assorted beverages into the night. The end of the perfect season.

And kudos to Timberline for letting the Drop, Off the Wall and Thunderdraft bump up.

...fat lady ain't sung yet...monday afternoon was another epic spring day w/ big soft bumps, several feet of base on all the trails, woods are still skiable, and great sun and temps...this afternoon and tommorrow afternoon should be much of the same-high speed bump runs...work in the morning, ski spring corn bumps in the afternoon into early evening...can't beat it up here in Canaan Valley right now...should be a great local's cup weekend this weekend as well!!!

Man, you are a lucky stiff... but watch out for those trees!

Good topic KWill. This season is worth noting for posterity! Who else has accounts from around the region about one of the best ski seasons in the history of lift served skiing in the mid-Atlantic??

You might be able to say that the season started a little slowly until the first big regional snow dump around Dec 19. From then on it sounds like Canaan Valley, WV stayed exceptionally good for the duration with multiple new snowfalls almost every week. I think many other resorts had a short lull in Jan, where conditions iced-up a bit and degraded from great to just sufficient for a week or so. Then came one of the greatest months of outstanding region-wide skiing we've ever known. Feb 2010 should be burned in all our memory banks. It was propelled by that big 2-3 foot dump on Feb 6 that ranged from Western NC, though most of Virginia, all of WV, to Pittsburgh and all southern PA, to Philly, Balt and DC. I skied three different weekends in Feb at Blue Knob, PA and the coverage was so good I skied stuff I had never skied before in 40+ years on and off there. I know the ski areas in NC had an epic season too. New England was not so fortunate, making our fine local conditions even more noteworthy. I made trips to Vermont in Jan and New Hampshire in Mar and to be honest, other than a great day at Wildcat on Mar 2, I did not see conditions that matched what I found all month at BK in Feb. It will be interesting to see if Canaan Valley's final seasonal snowfall tally equals or tops the major resorts in New England??
I would add, skiing at Timberline on Mar 21 there were no DIRT CHICKENS to be found. Wall to wall great snow pack remained on all slopes, and even 2-3 feet of natural in the woods keeping them skiable way into March.

December 19th? That'd be a good day for nuptials!

Oh yeah, Kim and everyone else who enjoyed all of the snow this year. All I ask for is a thank you. Nothing more (ok, maybe a beer or 2). I'm not an all too superstitious person, BUT I couldn't help but notice a trend. Wedding right before Xmas and med school throughout the winter. I'm sure those are BOTH reasons for an EPIC season. You guys are lucky I'm not selfish!!

Oh yeah, assuming I don't fail out or quit, you might want to have your snow shovels handy next winter as well!

WoW!! what a season to remember..Watching my Dogs fight to keep their heads above the Snow..worrying that my deck was going to collapse but also being pissed that the Snow plow dude crushed some of my newly planted white birch & hemlock & also my Killer attack "Welcome Bear" who lost its rear end to the same plow last year making it my "Bear assed Bear"..I'm going to miss him.. ..But it was all good!..the best part was not worrying about which run to do because the whole mountain was a run!
Now that it is over..sounds like a good time to start a Global Warming thread

Cheers to the epic season! We were skiing powder around thanksgiving and then early december too. It was the season of the never ending powder day, and i felt like bill murray in groundhogs day waking up to a fresh blanket almost daily it seemed. Left the home/work in VA abandoned for weeks on end. A sunny bluebird day was far and few between, thus EXTRA special. I got to ski in places I never have before, mainly because you just couldn't in years. The worry was not scraping your skis on rocks, it was about scraping them on fence posts. As the snowpack melts down, I look at some of the places we were skiing a month ago in wow of what we were skiing on top of! This is what i have been waiting a long time for. I originally was attracted to canaan for the real snow, (tho realized it is the place to be year round not long after....) so this winter was very very special. I think what Mike Sayer, long timer and one of the owners of wg, said one night after floating through the powder on a little night ski with a big smile on his face summed it up in a few words.... "That's why we all got places here". See some of y'all at the locals cup at tline i hope

David, I trust you are jesting...hang in there!
The Colonel

I will have one more weekend at Snowshoe this coming weekend. Then it will be over and praying that next Winter will be just as good.

This has just been awesome. As JimK said skiing places you've never skied before will be the comparison from here on out. There were a few new runs I've never done before but mostly it was being able to finally ski again all the great lines I explored locally some 2 decades ago. God do I hope it will not be 2 decades before I can ski them again.

I'll finish out here in the Laurel Highlands knowing the best skiing will be at T-line.

I hear you. I will finish out at Wintergreen. Being a passholder I want to support thier decision to open for another day. If the weather forecast holds up like it is now, Saturday should be a decent day.

I'm just going to go slightly against the grain (I think I did this last year too) and say:

The end of the perfect season...but the start of another great season. I mt biked and skied in the same weekend last week. How great is that? The trail was in surprisingly good shape where I was (though admittedly it was a lower elevation).

While biking is probably a 2nd to skiing as far as passion, it's so close to tied with skiing that I'm pretty happy to have the bike back out.

Sorry to hijack the thread. I just wanted to remind everyone that when nature closes a door, She opens a window...

Since I am addicted, I must satisfy my ski jones, so I am heading to Beaver Creek/Vail for the 1st week of April. After that I will be placed in a padded room to recover from withdrawal symptoms.
It has been a great season. The most snow I have ever seen around here. Skiing with that "wooshing" sound rather than the sound of steel edges across ice! Skiing through the trees without concern for gouges on my ski bottoms. And yes powder skiing after which powder moguls getting formed, yes, moguls that are not rock hard ice.

Someone could be Skiing up at SS or TL in Snow Tomorrow Morn...Should be a sweet feeling..Hope it happens!

PS..Looks stronger on the model data than what NWS is saying.

I am going to try and make it up there too on Saturday, probably with some refreshments in a cooler for tailgating, and then hit Blue Ridge Pig for BBQ in the afternoon. Maybe we can meetup for a couple runs. Weather looks very good. I am curious to see what slopes are going to open. Beyond that, maybe one more day at Snowshoe next week.

Back to the topic, I think this was an epic mid-season, but going through my annual ski notes and calendar, I am again reminded that the season started very slow and warm (Snowshoe opened about 2 weeks later than planned, and that's a good metric to track year to year). Compared to other years, I skied about 4 fewer days at the beginning of the season in Nov-Dec. The end of the season has been a bit abnormal as well. March, traditionally a very snowy month in WV with dynamic winter events, has been mostly warm and rainy instead. That has cost me 2-3 days here and there.

I had two great weeks in Utah, which was again a season highlight, but am bummed I couldn't cash in on any March powder in WV. Though I have not given up hope yet. Several years back, I had a wonderful powder day at Snowshoe in April. That was a sweet bonus.

Somebody is making runs in the Snow (snowing per dolly sods cam)..feeling like they are beating the system & being "on top of the world!"
Looking back at the 3715' obs at canaan hgts, the data is showing only a couple of days since nov 27th without snow cover...that is almost a full 4 months!..end of story..

Wow, 4 months of snow pack. No wonder this has been the season of the undiscovered country.