Starting this thread for the year. Usually it's Tuckers job but he is away this week and in fear of having his posts deleted anyway...so here we go!
11/26/14 10:30am - temps hovering around 32 degrees so snow is slightly heavy. but 7" so far and falling steadily with no wind. Getting ready to ski with dog around my area, then head to wg for some grassy slope skiing..even coverage because no wind which is a rarity. (maybe resorts later too since they have a little base from snowmaking already)
Yes 7 inches already! I hope it keeps coming, but radar looks like it will move out before too much longer. There is another clipper enroute too.
What is the elevation of that snow stake? How far and what direction are you from the ski areas?
I'm excited!
Droogie wrote:
Yes 7 inches already! What is the elevation of that snow stake? How far and what direction are you from the ski areas?
I'm excited!
base of the valley. 3200' i see all 3 ski areas from my backyard
I'm visiting the inlaws in middle TN and I took a peek at the Canaan Valley Resort webcam at 4:55 EST and saw a couple folks "test driving" the slopes. Good stuff back east!
Blue Don 1982 wrote:
I'm visiting the inlaws in middle TN and I took a peek at the Canaan Valley Resort webcam at 4:55 EST and saw a couple folks "test driving" the slopes. Good stuff back east!
Test drive complete. Both man and dog feel that the snow was real heavy and wet. Bound to be better today as it will be a little drier.
Great post, chaga. I'm ready!
Woody
another 3" or so has fallen so far this eve! This time, light lake-effect snow!! Awesome fluff on top of the heavier stuff that fell on Wednesday. (which also has dried and compacted a bit) I just got done skiing with the dog around the neighborhood and all i could think of is that it is like mid-winter conditions right now! (Ski right out the door to wherever)
Anddddd..their off folks...Canaan jumps out to an early lead...4200' Stake showing 13 inches (est)....Mount Mansfield VT Stake coming in at 9......
as tuckers press agent for this inception of a thread years ago, today's conditions were very sweet. 6-7" of fluffy powder on almost totally frozen ground made for sweet out the door ski conditions. another 4-6" expected from lake-effect winds tonight/tomorrow and it should be like mid-winterish ski conditions tomorrow. schools are already called off and more xc ski advantures shall ensue I am sure. If you are really out of tune you may find yourself doing lift runs tomorrow in -25 windchill like a hamster running on a wheel going no where but we will be in the woods skiing and warm wishing you the best :)
Awesome! Thanks for the update. Things are really looking up. The next ten days look great!
How bad will this rain event be? Will CV and Timberline be able to recover for the holiday weekend? Will Whitegrass be skiable outside of the snow farm areas?
the light rain and and brief warm up to the upper 30's temps isn't even a bump in the road for Tline and CV with their bases. It will be a little crusty after it gets cold again this eve but by the weekend I would suspect conditions to improve with grooming and snowmaking. As far as WG, the snow farm will be fine for sure, and upper trails (above lift-shack) should be fine also. the lower trails will have bare spots.
Most important and crucial is that I can no longer ski out the front door with the dog around the 'hood and wherever I want like I was able to do from tuesday-sunday last week. Friday night being the pinnacle of awesome natural snow conditions in my opinion. (a 2hr headlamp ski in our local trail circuit in the woods with the dogs at almost 0 degrees and nobody wanted it to end)
I was at Timberline on Sunday and CV Monday. The runs with no snow making, glades, and side country still need more snow. However, yesterday was a poacher's delight at Canaan Valley 
. The 15 inches that fell between the 5th and 10th of January that go warm has consolidated into a really hard base of about 1-4 inches keeping you from scraping right down to the grass/dirt/pebbles. However, stumps, rocks, branches are definitely not covered. Nearly all of the glades at Timberline were a definite no-go on Sunday except for Pearly Glades. The surface conditions on the open runs were really good at Timberline. Lift lines were tolerable for a holiday weekend once they got both lifts running, but I was pretty pissed to start the day.
Sunday night it snowed about 2 inches. It was some really, dense snow that made Monday fantastic. Monday was a poacher's delight at Canaan Valley. They officially had only 23 runs open, but I skied errrr poached literally every closed, named run. The bullet proof base with 2 inches of fresh was just enough to ski almost anything without snow making including Dark Side of the Moon and Prosperity. Unmarked glades were still a no-go. The closed runs are definitely not ready for the public, but were great for a selfish poacher like me. Because they were closed very few people were skiing them so I was getting fresh tracks all day. Gravity was not a fun poach because they just started snow making over there and had dug out the hoses to move them around creating huge blocks of snow and the two inches wasn't enough to keep me from feeling a jolt from the snowmobile tracks crisscrossing everywhere. Old Canaan Curve was the same.
Another 6 inches of new snow on the ground without what is there melting will really bring a lot more fun stuff in play in the CV areas.
fluffy powder on base... bluebird today. there is 11" snow depth in my yard from the this week. more on the way
Here is the fearless canaan f'cast for the next few days:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Robert Leffler
Date: Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 12:33 PM
Subject: Next 7 Day's Canaan Fearless Weather Forecast
General:
Old Man Winter is staying for the previously advertised prolonged visit and looking to put a Full-Court-Press on.
Specifics:
Thursday: Becoming cloudy, windy (gusts to 30 MPH out of the southwest) and warmer by morning as a vigorous disturbance passes to the northwest (over Lake Erie) of the WV high country. A trailing cold front sweeps through Thursday evening. Snow showers develop during the day, possibly beginning as light rain or a mixture initially, with highs in the mid-30's. Any mixed precipitation turns to all snow showers within several hours of the onset, continuing into the evening with 1-to-3 inches accumulation possible by midnight as temperatures fall. Winds increas out of the northwest with gusts to 40 MPH create blowing and drifting snow.
Friday: Strong northwest winds gusting to 45 MPH usher in much colder air and upslope show showers, tapering off by evening. Highs in the mid-teens. 2-to-4 additional inches accumulation possible (storm total 3-to-7 inches). There could be a period of heavy snow squalls around mid-day as a strong push of energy ushers in a secondary cold front. If this occurs, snowfall totals could go even higher.
Saturday: Settled morning lows near zero F and mostly sunny with highs in the upper teens F.
Sunday: Clouding up with light snow developing as a disturbance in the southwest approaches the Canaan. Highs in the 20's. This system should gradually usher in colder air late in the day. Snow accumulations of 3-to-6 inches possible by midnight.
Monday: Settled and cold with highs 5 to 10 F.
Tuesday: Settled and cold with highs upper teens.
Wednesday: Becoming cloudy with snow possible and highs in the 20's.
As always, there is uncertainty in these forecasts and they are subject to change. I will monitor the situation and advise you of any changes I see coming. In the mean time, I recommend you monitor more timely public forecasts for your local area at:
Once on the graphic, place your curser over your area-of-interest and click to get a specific local forecast.
Your Fearless Canaan Weatherman
We will be up there this Saturday for a demo. I can't wait to check out CV for the first time
I skied Canaan last Saturday (1/24). After the surprise rain in Friday night ( it snowed just about everywhere else) it was a bit icey and very foggy. But the grooming gave us a decent surface to ski on. I have not been to Canaan Resort in a while and I was surprised by the vintage of their snow making equipment. It looked like something from the 1980's. The new hotel was quite impressive but they should have reserved some money to upgrade the snow making equipment.
I would like to note that Timber's Pub at Timberline is one of the best ski bars around. Of course I skied with a hang over at Timberline on Sunday where the conditions were pretty good, despite the Friday night rain.
Hangovers..ughhh!......seems like everythng good in life has issues...coconut water...vitimen B.....Equate version of Aleve...Drink pickle juice..works for the Irish!.....dont drink?......Hahahahahahahahaha...burp.....
They did get money to upgrade snowmaking!!!!!
Quote from the fearless one...
"Sunday: Clouding up with light snow developing as a disturbance in the southwest approaches the Canaan. Highs in the 20’s. This system should gradually usher in colder air late in the day. Snow accumulations of 3-to-6 inches possible by midnight."
Models are trending further north with this system as of this AM so it looks like the notorious Canaan warm wedge might come into play overnite sun (10pm to 5am ish)..which could put a DAMPer on the snow totals by snows end mon aft/early eve..
Wil be waiting to see if the fearless one confirms..if not ...disregard!
In the meantime..last nites 3 inches and todays snows will be enjoyed ...
last friday/saturday conditions
Headline:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette snow/spoke sports writer Larry Walsh gets Chased around Cabin Mountain, WV.
Local boy skins city newsman in the best of 3 West Virgina ski resort try outs. Read all about it:
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/ski/2015/02/08/The-skinny-on-skins-for-skies/stories/201502080029
Great story about a great place.
2/13/15
8" of fresh powder on solid base for your weekend enjoyment. (2 more storms on the way) currently -5 degrees and should be cooooold for the next week or so. Sunday should be the coldest with a high of 2 degrees!! So, you would do yourself a favor by keeping warm by cross-country skiing and not freezing your butts off sitting on a lift. :) And not to mention you won't be seeing any powder by the weekend skiing at the downhill resorts anyway. (untracked will be at white grass if you want to be healthy and earn your turns in well manicured glades)
my dog beat me to first tracks!
unfortunately, the superintendent of schools just sent this out and said we are getting a few of these to transport the kids that live in canaan to school so the whole county doesn't have to close schools so much just because of the weather up on the mountain.
blizzard on the way tomorrow. surprised there is only a winter weather advisory posted. wind gusts up to 50 mph and 5+ inches of snow. wind chills of at least -30. Only cross-country skiers will be warm and cozy in a winter wonderland on the wooded trails out of the wind!
FULL....ON....BLIZZARD!!!!! If you are driving not out of necessity, you are a complete dumbass!
chaga wrote:
blizzard on the way tomorrow. surprised there is only a winter weather advisory posted. wind gusts up to 50 mph and 5+ inches of snow. wind chills of at least -30. Only cross-country skiers will be warm and cozy in a winter wonderland on the wooded trails out of the wind!
2/19/2015 9AM: -4F with light snow... Surface: Powder on top of powder, on top of powder on powder. (about 24" in the past week on top of base!) Ski anywhere and everywhere!
skiing out your back door is best though. (or in this case my buddies)
Beautiful pictures. Wish I were there Chaga. Make some turns for me and say hello to the gang.
the wg gang wishes you sweet turns where ever you may go Denis.
a video recap of the past week's conditions. pub schools open one day in the past two weeks and things don't look to change next week. (blizzardess conditions and below zero temps to blame...we can handle plain snow)
But it's *never* too cold to cross-crountry ski up and down the hill!
Nice video, thanks for sharing. I'm amazed at the skillz you guys have in the trees with those free-heeled setups. Awesome! I wish I was out there
Current conditions: CORN of exceptional quality and smoothness! I live for skiing after work on days like this, and luckily it's been every day this week so far!
Isn't another storm hitting there tomorrow?
I don't know about a "storm", but we got 4" of fluffy snow over night with current temp of 9F. Powder on base, and nobody around to track it up! Well, certainly not more than a few locals, but since you gotta earn turns, there isn't much hurry to get out there before it's skied up. And even better, it is a
BLUEBIRD powder day!
crgildart wrote:
Isn't another storm hitting there tomorrow?
Here's the non-Canaan version of that today. Seems like a truck drove all over anything w/o moguls.
hitting 'like button'. cept for the tire tracks! I actually found the conditions slightly better than dust on crust in some spots as the winds picked up today and blew the snow around. (the morning sun and calm turned to upslope snow flurries all day with a little wind) single digits tonight, but looks like back to corn season after that :)
Great conditions sunday with a touch of sunburn! Doctors, lawyers, farmers, biologists, teachers, ski patrol, etc,... the local nordic skiers were out in full force yesterday, with an uncoordinated, freaky convergence at the top! New studies have shown, up-hill skiers are happier skiers :)
Did you hear the NPR segment on uphill skiing this morning?
http://www.npr.org/2015/03/30/395523056/uphill-skiing-gains-traction-in-colorado
haha, so XCD (cross-country-downhill) is gonna get popular now that white grass has been doing it for 30 years :)
As far as CONDITIONS go:
Absolutely stellar corn at canaan on gravity yesterday 4/6. full coverage still!
and surprise....there was fresh courderoy going up timber...thanks to some nice mountain ops folks who are kind enough to drop the tiller when they have to make a run up the mountain to retrive stuff with the groomers :) makes climbing soooo much easier for us!
tline looks good still with coverage too, but haven't been there yet because canaan has better views and is a much prettier ski area to be at without a doubt!
perfect corn conditions today on the last top to bottom run anywhere in the valley. luckily there is tons of snow on it along with bumps and whales. (gotta hike a bit to get to it, but it is primo)
Looks like an edgeless Evo? Wow! Great form too.
