While ski conditions at Timberline over X-Mas were about as good as it gets for that early in the season, serious snowmaking ground to a stop somewhere around December 18th. As usual, various rumors circulated. One rumor was that the early snowmaking drained the water to low levels and the cold weather kept the lake from refilling. Another had to do with a broken pump that needed to be replaced.

The Valley lost lots of snow over the weekend and temps are once again good for snow making. So the question of the week for the Valley locals is whether T-Line has resumed making snow in a serious way or are the guns still silent?

Looks like they have the wands on the drop and off the wall fired up as well as the guns on lower dew.

From Timberline's web page from the what is new section:
"Timberline granted permanent access to the Blackwater River to increase snowmaking capability"

...come on Doc...just sell the place...you got a couple offers on the table....

I'll second that proposal! (:^O)>>>

Thanks Tucker. They've had the heavy artillery lined up on Thunderstruck since December 18th. So I'm assuming those guns haven't moved and are still not blowing? Also, anyone know the real reason why they stopped blowing during the 10 days of cold weather before X-Mas?

It doesn't look like they are blowing on Thunder, but I am looking out the window from the middle of the valley from my office. In fact, at second glance, I am not real sure they are blowing on the wall either. It looks like they are blowing on just the drop and lower dew.

It's impressive how hard the T-line mountain operations works. It is amazing how good of a product those guys can put out with limited means to do their job. That place would be 100% open 2 weeks ago if they had the proper equipment to work with.

Believe it or not...it does look like canaan is blowing in a couple spots including the first meadows.

The snow on the slopes that were open over X-Mas was excellent and the base on those slopes is deep. It is just depressing that Thunderstruck and Almost Heaven are still barren and the mountain is still essentially where it was two weeks ago.

They must in trouble because when I was up there I saw all the big guns on thunder also & it was plenty cold enough to blow but they were just lined up & waiting.
I think the run was open with natural with a warning of bare spots which I don't see happen at TL unless they ARE having problems.

I was at the pub talking to Bob Snieder (spell?) about TL & your name came up Tucker..I think I just missed ya..

I think it was both (starting a third rumor.) One snowmaking pond was drained due to the early snowmaking. The pump from the lake (new water source?) to another snowmaking pond was broken.

So we need to hope for periods of warm weather so the melting snow fills the ponds then periods of cold so they can blow. MMMMMM!

You Alpine boys better invest in some AT gear. Might be busting out the skins to get to the top sooner than we think.

There is some sort of twisted logic there.

Timberline. Winter just keeps sneaking up on them.

Hey could be worse. Could be Hidden Valley.

I also heard that the pump had been fixed. Rumor #4.



Tom, you're way too uptight about this. Deep down, I think your heels are locked.

These rumors are great. As Timberline Turns - keeps the chair rides interesting.

Sometimes I revert to old habits and those heels lock down.

Just go with the Timberline flow.

Snow has melted off the trails? Just have fun practicing skiing around/jumping over grass and rocks. Under funky snow conditions. Great skill building and a fun change of pace from groomers.

I spazed out on Friday and skied down the closed The Drop. Didn't see the closed sign since I pulled a hard left off the Silver Queen chair. Once I hit the headwall, I thought "I bet this trail is closed and I missed the sign." Yep. On most of the headwall, the only path down was a few foot wide swath of snow near the snowguns; that snow alternated between crust and mush. No worries. Good practice for difficult chutes out west.

Had a blast skiing Almost Heaven on Friday; not much snow on it, but why worry about details like that?

Yep! There is always a bright side. The good thing about having Almost Heaven au natural was that they didn't groom it after they got that 6"-8" of cold smoke powder last week. MMMM - people really liked that! Who would have guessed?

Wish I could have been down Mon/Tues of last week, but couldn't swing it. Heard nothing but great stories.

I boarded for 4 hours, and skied for another 3 at Tline today:
They started blowing on:
Lower Dew Drop
Off the Wall
The Drop
Lower Thunderdraft
Later in the day, they started blowing on:
Upper Thunderstruck as well as the above, minus Lower Thunderdraft.
Here's another logical reason for NOT blowing snow while you visited Tline during the Holiday:
a) The original forecast said snow snow snow (thus could have save Tline 1000's on snowmaking).
b) Tline didn't want to inconvenience its sought after visitors with snow while on the chairs.
c) Should a catastrophy really have taken place, it's been fixed.
d) Forest service could have instructed of a rare migrating animal specie that could noit bare the sound of these guns (French migrators)?!

You must have heard about Tuesday's knee-deep powder in the Valley from my Persuasive Essay .

Your essay kinda sucked, but the pictures were real good.

Seriously, looked like you hit the money day at the money area.

Office?

my office

Mama natures Snow calvary is coming to the rescue starting thur aft for awhile & then by the 12th, give or take, this thread will be dead..

Tucker: what are you doing to the Cooper Homestead www.damaps.com/wv/6039

That reminds me..I'm due for some updated Pics of "Alpine View"..http://www.mountaintoprentals.net/vacation-rental-home.asp?PageDataID=19026...Did you do the 1st ones TGV?..(Hijack :o)..Will need some outside Snow pics with the freshies coming up to go along with some upgrades on the inside..

Vic, I am not doing anything to it. I am in it doing my taxes, working on some estimates, and procrastinating a little by giving snowmaking reports...I didn't see any snowmaking yesterday afternoon...I'll disagree with your earlier post Vic though, I don't think there is anything logical about not blowing snow over the last two weeks...just my opinion...point # b is hysterical...is that French humor

Nicer office than mine.

I can see not blowing snow during Xmas-NY week, but they should have been pounding the guns the week before that.

Rules on T-line's rumors...
Rule # 1. Rumors are necessary for t-lines SOP both during and out of season.
Rule # 2. Rumors can only be created in the confines of the Pub.
Rule # 3. Rumor validity is directly proportional to the amount of "beverages" consumed in the Pub.
Rule # 4. Rumors are based on rumors spread by well intentioned patrons to perpetrate threads such as this on DC Ski.

(Warning: Thread hijack!)

The Cooper Homestead. I had a colleague by the last name of Cooper who said his family was from Tucker Cnty WV. He's been in Houston at least since college many years ago.

Is it currently still in the family?

No, the house in the picture was brought back to life and sold on the market. I believe there are many folks around here that carry on the Cooper name still.

...I am surprised the mayor has not jumped in here...makes me wonder if the rumor was true that he wasn't getting his kickbacks over at the t-line and he got pissed and sent his goones over to stop all snowmaking...

Excellent point. Chicago has the Daley's. Timberline has the S___'s

Timbers was also out of IPA draft this past weekend. Could this all be related? Hmmmm....

Hey kickbacks were very very good last week, even got a few all the way from Roosha.

Tucker it looks to me like you could use an administrative assistant or a finish carpenter to help you out, is APD doing any hiring?? I would need a ride to work, every other day off, a generous powder day allotment, paid in cash and if you can agree to all that I'll think up some more. Two offers on the table?

..sorry, we don't hire union or mafia types...

SKI'n'fish:
I would be delighted to go back and provide some new photos for your property. Email me regarding your Alpine View property (link: www.damaps.com/wv/6031)
direct: vic@akaflash.com

Tucker:
It was way too early in the morning - I was so wrong to even mention "B" as an option in my ealier post.
Back to reality - there is SUCH charm in that Homestead - one of my favorite to take photos of in the whole valley.

ALL:
You should see the amount of snow being blown on UPPER THUNDER STRUCK !

...yeah Vic, I think I was wrong with my call the other day about the blowing on thunderstruck...I took it for the drop and off the wall they were blowing on from a view from a distance, but from your report it was obviously thunder and the drop they were hammering....the draft is one of my favorites over there, it usually grows some consistently casual bumps...

Tucker - imagine for a second that you are atop thunderstruck... you are now barely entering this "natural" bump-o-rama land... it's still relatively "flat" before the head wall... well, now make an immediate RIGHT turn into the woods and you are in for a very GOOD surprise.
I spent about 3 hours up there today, and 2 other people spent about 8 hours each (yesterday and today). The result:
An amazing new trail being cut through woods.
Looked pretty good, getting a lot of the drift from the guns.
It may or may not be my favorite trail - right after thunderstruck that still remains "the place to be".
If anyone could help - that would be fantastic. 12 people, 1 hour each, and all at once - and we could do miracles.

Thanks for the update guys. Glad to hear they are blowing snow again. Thunderstruck and draft are really nice runs. Looks to be a great start this season.

Vic, Several of us had a conversation on the lift last year about doing just that over the summer. If it's being done due to your efforts, you are the man. Won't be up until the weekend so I can't help... yet if anything needs done then and I'm not working in Bobby's world I'll help.

I got an email from my friend regarding the Cooper Homestead:

"you discovered a bit of my heritage. In the early 1880's three Cooper brothers left Winchester, Virginia for Tucker County, WV. Two stayed there and had some huge number of offspring. The third's family eventually moved to Morgantown.

The homestead was actually built by the brother of my great-great grandfather. My parents live about a mile away on land that was part of Cooper Ranch until about 30 years ago. Most of it was eventually sold to Canaan National Wildlife Refuge by my great uncle Red's estate.

I just returned from a week there. Lots of snow and the skiing was good. The guy who runs the lift lines reminded my boys that we were cousins, maybe fifth cousins, but in the back woods everyone is."

Hey Vic I am interested look me up Friday if there's anything left to do. My goones won't be around to help but i'm fun to watch.

tucker, get to work or just go skiing, don't try to do both

vic, impressed to see you skiing on those rossi evo xc skis with no metal edges on the t-line glacier the other day. something i wouldn't try cuz it was not a day to crash and hit the ground!

Friday, 11h00 at the ski school desk - I would love to have you guys provide a little help. Bring lousy gloves.
There is not much work left if 10-12 people show up. In fact, perhaps an hour and we'd have a run ready - SERIOUSLY.
We were at it again today; I was tempted to ride it tele - soon though - and many thanks in advance for your help.

Oh yeah... let's continue with a bit of insight info on the snow report:
Off the Wall was groomed this morning. You know what that means?
I need your help, and all you have to do is ski it hard and BUMP IT UP. It shouldn't take too long. Speaking of which, I have new icons on the snow report (excel type format):
www.visitcanaan.com/timberline/snow-report.pdf

The Interactive version is still available on:
www.visitcanaan.com
www.timberlineresort.com
www.t4sr.com

Reporting has been moved to 8h15 or so... some folks like to sleep (and I am not specifically talking about myself) - either way, enjoy and SEE YOU THERE.

Crap. Whales no mas? Any chance they'll return with more snowmaking?

Unlikely - but Tline likes to surprise us once in a while.
Until then, humans can make bumps - and a whole lot of them.

Not really on OTW. It is sheltered from sunlight so it doesn't soften up much. (It is the most sheltered trail at T-Line.) Plus current forecast is for this January to be very cold (good news for skiing, bad news for softening up OTW.) Plus you have the compressed snowmaking base which is durable and tough to punch through.

OTW will likely be the tame barely single-black groomer the rest of the season as it was most of last season.

Maybe the forecasted weekend snow plus the skier traffic will lead to a rapid re-growth of the bumps. I think I'll be a T-line on Monday, so I can file a report.

Awwwww!! I was expectin it tho. With the warm-up and rain and now the freeze those bumps would've been a little bit hard. Besides, the left side was full of bare spots. Maybe they'll blow again and revive the whales. meanwhile we will have new whales to play with on the drop.

Since this thread has drifted a bit, perhaps this will bring it back-----or not.

TL and CV have received over 50% of their average annual snowfall amounts in the last month. Also, snowmaking temps have been good for the same period with below average temps for most days.

So why does TL have closed runs, and why does CV only have a limited number of runs open at this point. The lowland VA resorts (jab at Tucker) have received only 15% of their annual snowfall and are 100% open, and have been since before Christmas.

Did TL and CV get lazy with all the initial dumpage? Are they cheap or incompetent or both? Are the holding out until right before MLK? Help me out here?

I understand that natural snow does not = and open trail in the Mid-A, but 75 inches helps not hurts. And no crying about the rain, except WG.

In theory, yes, but in T-Line reality no. My last post was a bit in error since I don't know what happened after mid Feb last year (whales were still alive), but in the years prior to that, once they've removed the whales they've regularly groomed OTW. Nary a bump to be found. I'm not counting on that changing this year.

A groomed OTW can be somewhat dangerous since most who go down it have no ability to speed control and they pretty much straightline the headwall and go flying out into the Sally S Turn/Amen Corner, making that accident-prone spot even more accident prone.

I'll help you out. Read this thread, it explains what happened.

JohnL actually you are right, my post was more directed at CV.

Has CV ever had their act together?

Point taken, but we were over there last year around the third week and they had everything open except Weiss 3 and the Glades or Spruce Run (the narrow one) and this was after a major flood. I can't see them there this year.

My snow report is totally innacurate this morning:
The Drop is now open, ungroomed, with whales.

THe rest is good - I mean great... great to have over 30 slopes open right now. Who's complaining (again)?
ahahahah

Once upon a time, back in the day when all the good folks who now run t-line worked there.

It took long enough, but Timberline has finally turned on SNOWMAKING on every single slopes yesterday, including all woods, all cross country as well as backcountry trails. Coverage was very even: 7+ inches.
They blew snow so hard that Canaan Valley & White Grass Touring center received the same.

CVR had everything open except Gravity. They just need to push it out and it will be open as well.