Thats Right..I'll just be watching the Powder fall on the webcams Mid Morn Sat Thru Sun Wish I could be there. Another Clipper dropping down & remember that the last one brought 8 to 9 inches of the Light Stuff to the Canaan Valley area slopes. If I could swing it I would be the 1st one on the lift on Sun Morn at any of the WV Areas (looks like WV is in the Bullseye again)..From what I have heard posted & talking to some locals & along with some of my own experience, Canaan mtn would be the choice for "undisturbed" powder. I'm sure there will be stashes at the other areas too...Wish I could be there..You snooze you LOSE...Winter won't last forever!...PS Hope the good stuff spills north for the DCski Group At 7S Too!!

WJAC-TV in Johnstown is predicting 3"-5" SUnday for the Laurels.

Latest thinking out of NWS Charleston is for localized amounts(higher elevations) of 6 inches for Sat & another 3 to 5 above 3000' for Sun. BUTTT it snowed all nite...so when does the storm start & when does it end? Snow heaven Lately...There is a "Warm Wind" blowin on another thread & I know where its coming from too! Ullr was talkin about another 9 inch dump soon..well this could be it Buddy!

Hey Andy things look good out here for more-snow-than-expected from this clipper. We were supposed to have a high of 36 with scattered rain and snow showers. Instead, it's 25 degrees and puking snow right now. Already over an inch on the ground with at least another inch or two on the way.

If I wasn't leaving for Taos tomorrow, I'd be getting ready to head off to the state park for some more X-C skiing!!!

Anyway, the point is this storm appears to be coming in further south than anticipated. That might lead to some added cold and/or more precip in the Mid-A (we're not talking a Nor'Easter here, but I'll bet WG would be thrilled with 9 inches+ to make up for all the ice a couple days ago).

Anyway keep your fingers crossed, maybe this one will turn out better than expected to balance the last one off a bit!

Thanks for the positive vibe Roger...you still a Home Bisquit even though you flew the coup! Yeh, Accuweather started to Poo Paw this storm yest but looking at the latest radar it still looks good. Even got a little spin to it.To get back to the ice thing...anything Frozen is GOOD! That ice crust which lays on a foot & a half of snowpack(A good 2 feet over 4000') will just help to preserve the goods when that "Warm Wind" finally does enter the pic. This March could get interesting...I need at least 1 more big dump & some good hard fast skiing to wet my whistle!....I will add this...I get SICK thinking about not being able to ski MPC..."Almost Heaven" Would have been friggin ILL the last month & a half! Oh well, maybe some money & improvements to Canaan & TL & the aging process will cure my Ill's over the years.

Winter Storm WARNING for the southern Alpps(Boone,nc ski areas) for elevations above 3500'. What can be better than sipping coffee & watching weather porn?

Arrived CV around 10 am and the roads were clear all the way to Mt. Storm power plant then spotty ice/snow cover to Davis. It started with light flurries about 1pm and now 30 minutes later big fluffy flakes and lots of them. I suspect we will see 6-8 inches before it stops tomorrow. I just hope there is enough to cover the concrete crust.

FYI--anyone who might need a pit stop about half way could do worse than Aromas coffee joint in Moorefield. Good coffee, spotless restrooms even my wife will use, and nice assortment of baked goods and sandwiches.

That place does look nice - it's never open when I go by though - something like 7-4 Tue-Sun. I cleared my walk and deck when I get here (TLine) and there's another 2-3 on the rail again. Not exact, but if it keeps up it will make for a very happy Sunday!

Clay

Well..So far We got 4 inches at Sugar Mtn,NC..5 at SS,4 at Wisp ,5 at 7S & at 3715' Canaan Hts CKing in with an "Oficial" 8 inches!! Its still snowing & Is supposed to pick up this aft again. The 3715' has reached 110 for the year which means my 80 inch more predict while we were at 30"'s has been reached & we still have all of March to go! If we have to have a little warmup this could be a good time...& then let march ROAR!!........I'm editing this to add that the "Oficial" Obs at 3280' Canaan Valley just posted a 10 inch total...Thats how much fell into his snow tube collector. The valley will get a foot of more out of this event The 4000' stake will be at or above the 30" mark Snow lovers delight...I'm Editing this one more time..Canaan just updated their Snow report with a 12 inch total..A FOOT..with heavy snow falling!!...Yeh, Just sittin here watchin the Powder

Whitegrass just posted a 12pm update...UNDER SEIGE! up to 14 inches & still coming down..Single lane driving with Drifts getting BIG! I talked to my plowman up there & he told me that he had to dig my renters out so they could go skiing....He told me that they had a foot by 10am at my house level of 2900'. All light POWDER! Any inkling of this snowfall down at the city level(Dc,Balt,Richmond)?? If Not I might have to call them & badger them into reporting THE DEEPEST(new) STUFF in the country.....somebody is plowing thru some kick butt Powder on the Off the wall & the Drop whales at TL.....Stay tuned....

Latest storm warning for the valley (bold is mine )

National Weather Service Zone - WVZ041


PBZWSWPBZ
WWUS41 KPBZ 181722
WSWPBZ

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PITTSBURGH PA
1222 PM EST SUN FEB 18 2007

MDZ001-WVZ023-041-190130-
/O.CON.KPBZ.WS.W.0002.000000T0000Z-070219T0300Z/
GARRETT-PRESTON-TUCKER-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...OAKLAND MD...GRANTSVILLE...KINGWOOD...
TERRA ALTA...PARSONS...DAVIS...THOMAS
1222 PM EST SUN FEB 18 2007


WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM EST THIS
EVENING.

A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM EST THIS
EVENING.

BRISK NORTHWEST WINDS OFF THE GREAT LAKES WILL BRING SNOW SQUALLS
AND OCCASIONAL WHITE OUT CONDITIONS ACROSS THE DISTRICT THIS
AFTERNOON INTO THIS EVENING. TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATION FOR TODAY
COULD REACH 8 TO 10 INCHES BEFORE THE SNOW TAPERS OFF TO FLURRIES
THIS EVENING. THE BRISK WIND GUSTS WILL ALSO PRODUCE CONSIDERABLE
BLOWING AND DRIFTING OF SNOW.

TRAVEL CONDITIONS WILL BE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. MOTORISTS SHOULD
EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION AND AVOID TRAVEL IF POSSIBLE.

A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW...
BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. STRONG WINDS
ARE ALSO POSSIBLE. THIS WILL MAKE TRAVEL VERY HAZARDOUS OR
IMPOSSIBLE.

Hey Clay, I thought you were up there...Been waiting for a 1st hand report.....Over a foot of snow falls up at the valley & Then they decide to issue a Winter Storm Warning...Unbelievable!....Still coming down.. could we get 20" Total??!!wish the TL webcam was up & running.

Yes, I am here. It is so cool. The one thing that this has really taught me is that I truly suck in powder Oh well, no time like the present to learn! Looks to me like we've gotten 6-8 since I last cleaned off the deck (last night I think) and it's still coming down strong. I would help you out with pix, but of course, this is the weekend I forgot my camera.

Clay

we had some nice heavy snow showers pass through in NOVA. we have maybe 1 or 1.5 inches ontop of the old snow and other cold surfaces. i'm definitely itching to get up to the slopes now tommorow morn.

Here in Garrett County we've had about 10 inches or so over the last 28 hours. Light, dry, powder mostly, with some denser whiteouts at times. Big time powder day at the downhill areas, and some of the finest XC conditions ever. Off trail could kill you though - 10 inches of super powder on top of 3/8" ice glaze on top of 12 inches of settled snow. Yikes! But, add it all up and it's deep deep deep. There's also lots of 6' - 8' plus drifts on the edges of open areas. Snowshoeing into the Sods or Roaring Plains right now would be an epic adventure.

sweet...i'm leaving for canaan valley right now. never been there - hopefully i won't freeze to death in my car overnight

Seriously - please be very careful driving and do take a warm sleeping bag with you. There have been periodic whiteout conditions today and the wind is still blowing hard. Be prepared for LARGE drifts, possibly all the way across the road, in open areas. RT 219 in MD is in good shape as of an hour ago, but the Tucker Cty and other rural WV roads may be in really bad shape. Be careful....

Monday AM - powder check-in. I'm here at our place in tline. Unofficially, I am sure we received over 18" of the finest lightest powder. Way too cold for my girls yesterday - ended up skiing with my friends' teenage son. Talk about skiing like a kid again. We ended up skiing everything here yesterday. Steeps, trees, bumps, whales - all good. The run we enjoyed the most was Silver Steak from the lift house down about half-way, cutover across White Lightning to Glade Runner, through the trees and back out across lower Lightning to lower Silver Streak back down to the Queen. We were often skiing in white-outs. Off the Wall and the Drop were fun too. Couldn't take a line over the whales on the Drop - backsides were blown clean to ice. The line was up and down the right side of the whale pod - that's where all the powder collected. Worst slope was Almost Heaven. We hit it around 4pm - the wind and skiers had scraped it clean down to ice. Waiting here for a little warm-up to get my daughter out today. Temps are supposed to moderate, maybe even a little sun, the holiday crowds have gone home. Should be a great ski day.

Tom

When I left the valley yesterday around 3, it was white-out conditions. I had skiied knee deep pow under the chair on first run, and in the glades most of the day. I was guessing at least 12 to 14 in the am on top to 8+ at the base. I expect they received another 6+ later in the afternoon. In my 14 years of doing the valley, I have never experienced the white out conditions driving south into Harmon. (sigh) But I had to be at work this AM and had to leave the additional pow for the other pigs in the valley. It was, as they say, EPIC! For those of you who get to use it up on Monday, Blahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Glad to see you got home allright Kwill! The rest of you have a safe trip too....Did you make it Appski?...Well what has it been..6 weeks sraight of arctic blasts? Looks like this Blizzard was the grand finale for the "Heart" of winter. Now that we are going back to normal Or a little above for 10 days or so we can expect the Gores & Mash's of the world to peek up out of their blankets & to start causing trouble again! We Snoozers need more war stories from the Western Front!!!........I guess the "March Blizzard of 2007" still to come, won't seem so special ....You were on the money TGD..17.7 at 3715'.."NWS Oficial"....2 FEET on MPC!!! "un oficial"

Made it to Canaan Valley around 3am after leaving DC metro around 10:30pm. The roads got sketchy south of Petersburg. There was a lot of snow driving over the pass on Hwy 33! I slept in my car at the state park and stayed pretty warm somehow. So, I hit the slopes just before 9am at CV (they only charged me $15 for a full day pass!). CV got a little happy with the grooming, but oh well. Powder was had on each run until I left at 1:30. I skied boot deep snow with pockets of knee deep nearly every run. Valley drop (first tracks), Gravity , some random frontside trail, and meadow 3 were the only trails left ungroomed. The woods are in excellent shape. I actually had never skied eastern glades until today. I didn't hit anything but snow in the woods. The trees on the left side of meadow 3 were my fav.
You could pretty much ski any tree line you dared.

a few pics and a vid

sunrise over CV
canaan valley pano
my tracks on valley drop
random boarder in meadows 3
eating powder, no wood eaten today

I am o so jealous! Great pics!-- looks like they have a ton of snow up there at the top.

Great shots - and you get my vote, for sure, for hard core winner of the weekend Leaving at 10:30 last night to sleep in the car at CV - I respect that! Glad you had a safe trip and a great day of powder....

Appskiah:
Great pictures. Sorry you had to sleep in your car. Week day rates at Canaan Lodge are just $35/night.
How did you take the video: with a video camera or the video setting on a digital frame camera? Either way, pretty gutsy given the fact that the trees were relatively close together. Where did you have the camera mounted or were you holding it in your hand?
Again, great pictures. What an adventure!
The Colonel

It was a last second trip. i had planned on just leaving monday morning, but the last time I told myself that I was too lazy to drive to BK on a powder day. So, the only way to defeat my morning laziness was to start driving immediately. I had never been to the Canaan Valley, so I had no idea where to stay, except to just throw down at the state park. the video was taken hand-held. thanks for your comments

Awesome pictures! I need to time it to hit the next storm like this....

u cannot time it u gotta chase it

do not plan a trip

drive directly to the snow

if it's snowing where ur at stay

Great report and pics. I was at CV the weekend before last, and even at that point you could go into the woods without really risking damage to ski bases. The woods to skiers left of meadows 3 were nice, I agree..continuing on down from that point, bearing left so that you end up near the top of the beginners lift, also had some nice shots.

One run I really liked was the run that goes right under the lift that is to skiers right of the main quad lift - I guess the run between Valley View and Gravity? When I was there it was semi-bumped up, but I was thinking that it would be really nice getting first tracks on it after a good snowfall. You know the one I mean?

Cking some weather obs for that nite....it got down to 5 at 3715' & you were only about 300 feet below that! If things got unbearable you could have tucked into the bathhouse & got Toasty. When I was building my place up there we would hit the park for warm water & Hot showers...free!..Hey, we asked for a price & they told us to go for it!..Got your pics & Vid saved..way to go for it!!...Or maybe you should be scolded like the Mt Hood climbers ...Feb 15,16 & 17 all got below 0...you were lucky to have above 0!