Aug 13, 2025
Bryce builds a bigger backside
Construction began on four new snowmaking-equipped trails—green, blue, and black—served by a new quad lift.
DCSki Archive
Time Machine
Travel back through DCSki history and revisit the stories, conversations, weather, and mountain news that shaped each ski season.
Season 2025-26
2025–26: Snowmaking, Memory, and the Long Way Around
A season of extremes and adaptation: Mid-Atlantic resorts invested in snowmaking and lifts, skiers navigated drought, storms, pricing, and aging bodies, and the DCSki community preserved everything from lost ski areas to backyard rope tows. The season began with promising cold, delivered memorable powder, and ended unevenly—with some resorts closing early while Camelback and northeastern areas pushed into May.
Through the season
Timeline
Key moments drawn from DCSki's reporting and Forum archive.
Sep 29, 2025
West Virginia’s unwritten ski history comes calling
The Snow Sports Museum sought authoritative information about Almost Heaven and other proposed but never-built resorts.
Nov 3, 2025
The season starts with cold and snow
An early November cold snap brought substantial natural snow to Canaan Valley and White Grass while resorts across the region prepared their snow guns.
Nov 12, 2025
A regional opening rush
Sustained cold pushed Mid-Atlantic resorts into opening mode, with snowmaking, promotions, passholder previews, and terrain expansion arriving in quick succession.
Dec 27, 2025
Snowmaking in a box
DCSki examined Latitude 90’s weather-independent systems at Massanutten and Spring Mountain—a targeted supplement for marginal-weather operations.
Jan 16, 2026
The backyard mountain takes shape
Kevin Thomas described 22 seasons of running a natural-snow Pennsylvania hill with a 775-foot rope tow, 14-plus trails, and night skiing.
Jan 22, 2026
Seven Springs’ snowmaking legacy recognized
Seven Springs became a finalist—and later won—the national I Am A Snowmaker contest, connecting present-day staff with Herman K. Dupré’s pioneering work.
Feb 7, 2026
Camelback aims for May
Camelback announced an ambitious late-season schedule, seeking its longest season on record through natural snow and sustained snowmaking.
Feb 22, 2026
DCSki confronts the cost of staying online
The site’s operator described the pressure AI scraping and declining advertising placed on an independent regional publication and asked readers for support.
Apr 9, 2026
A 138-day finish
Camelback reported completing a 138-day season through May 5, pairing aggressive snowmaking with renewed programming, accessibility efforts, and community engagement.
What defined the season
Major themes
Building a More Weather-Resilient Mid-Atlantic
Snowmaking upgrades, new lifts, expanded terrain, and experimental systems reshaped the regional operating story, even as water supplies and aging infrastructure imposed limits.
A Season Written by Weather
Early cold enabled an energetic opening, January storms transformed conditions, drought constrained some resorts, and spring warmth brought an uneven finish.
Who Can Afford to Ski?
Epic, Indy, youth programs, friend tickets, dynamic pricing, and local passes reflected a central question of the season: how can skiing remain accessible to occasional and new participants?
Local Mountains, Distinctive Places
Timberline, Laurel, Massanutten, Snowshoe, Blue Knob, Wisp, and Liberty were experienced not simply as interchangeable destinations, but as places with their own terrain, histories, rhythms, and communities.
Skiing for a Lifetime—and Remembering Those Who Made It
Members discussed fitness, surgery, equipment, changing goals, and the friendships that sustain skiing, while museums and archives gathered the region’s disappearing ski history.
Beyond the Home Hill
Destination travel remained aspirational and practical at once, involving passes, budgets, airport logistics, road risk, and the appeal of independent or overlooked mountains.
DCSki's Forum is a community discussion area. Views expressed by members are their own.
