There’s intense anticipation for this winter in the Southern Appalachians. Early signs were hopeful with several regional resorts being among the East’s earliest openers thanks to pre-Thanksgiving cold, snow, and solid snowmaking into December.

Hurricane Helene

Hurricane Helene still haunts us. Ongoing news stories about struggling businesses closing and politicized federal recovery money not meeting expectations in amount and speed are real and really affect tourism. Luckily, last year’s ski season breathed post-hurricane vibrance into southern snow sports while energizing tourism in rural mountain resorts among the hardest hit by Helene.

That said, our southernmost mountain resorts, restaurants, hotels and occupancy tax dependent municipalities are hoping for a good season.

The Southern Alps, once isolated,  are increasingly interstate accessible. Case in point Asheville, still recovering and in need of skiers’ good will, is a vibrant city surrounded by a jagged 6,000-foot skyline and a fast 30 minute I-26 drive from Hatley Pointe ski area. It’s easy to focus on AVL’s classic hotels and diverse and create rarefied ski memories. The Omni Grove Park Inn and new Flat Iron Hotel are top choices.

Here’s a state-by-state guide to what’s new in the Southeast

North Carolina

In the northwestern “High Country” corner of North Carolina, Appalachian Ski Mtn. has refined its automated snowmaking system, added a new snow groomer, and expanded snow making capacity and night ski lighting on main slopes. It’s also broken ground on a major new skier services center and a snow groomer garage, both to open next winter.

A few miles away, the “Hallmark Channel” town of Blowing Rock, regularly touted as the region’s quaintest mountain burg, has added new dining and lodging to slopeside options.

Beech Mountain Resort, the East’s highest ski area and town has rebuilt the mountaintop 5,506 Sky Bar pub and dining spot. The vista includes the nearly 7,000-foot spine of the Black Mountains, NC’s and the East’s very highest peaks, as well as Virginia’s highest summits.

Sugar Mountain Resort is North Carolina’s biggest ski area, with a mile-and-a-half run to the lodge and1,200 feet of vertical from a 5,300-foot summit. This season debuts new LED slope lights on the Lower Flying Mile run to the base lodge and new snowmaking Sugar also has a tubing park, ice skating, and guided snowshoe tours.

Sugar Mountain (submitted by Randy Johnson)

Farther south, just west of Asheville, below snowy Big Bald Mountain and the Appalachian Trail, boutique Hatley Pointe Resort follows its buzzworthy debut last winter with widened and expanded existing slopes and new gladed runs and new snowmaking.

That permitted Hatley to gift its used snow guns to Cloudmont Ski Area, Alabama’s only ski slope, and southernmost in the East.

Cataloochee Ski Area’s diverse slope system clings to the border of Great Smoky Mountains National Park southwest of Asheville. This winter’s big news is the Omigosh Quad chairlift, a $4-miliion Doppelmayr Alpenstar lift, named after an adjacent black diamond. Cataloochee director of marketing and public relations Sarah Worrell, calls it “thelargest single capital improvement in Cataloochee’s history.”

Most Cataloochee lodging and dining is in the town of Maggie Valley, but classic Cataloochee Ranch, a landmark summer equestrian lodge from 1933, has memorable luxury accommodations close to the slopes.

Diminutive Sapphire Valley ski area near Cashiers, NC, gets a new magic carpet lift at its Frozen Falls tubing park. Other tubing options include North Carolina’s, and one of the East’s biggest tubing resorts, Hawksnest Snow Tubing, near Boone in the town of Seven Devils.

This winter, 6,300 foot Roan Mountain reopens after two winters of Forest Service infrastructure improvements and Helene repairs.

Virginia

Bryce Resort, just west of the Shenandoah Valley in Basye, Virginia, boasts a significant slope expansion this year. The resort has four new slopes, all joining existing runs like Bootlegger and White Lightning, names reminiscent of Prohibition or “Appalachian ‘craft’ alcohol.” New names include Speakeasy and 80 Proof, and the new Prost, recall the founding Locher family’s European roots with the German word for “cheers.”

Two new green slopes and one intermediate reflect Bryce's traditional beginner emphasis. The sole new black run, Randy’s Remedy, will appeal to better skiers who value the area’s long reputation for a quality ski racing program.

Atop the Blue Ridge near Charlottesville, Wintergreen has a massive multiyear effort rethink its entire snowmaking strategy and infrastructure, starting with the replacement of all snowmaking on the Dobie slopes and central mountain area, the busy easier terrain that links the resort’s two most flanking trail layouts.

Massanutten takes a breather this winter from the last several seasons of major slope expansion. The diverse new runs, including a third from the summit with 1,000 feet of vertical, simply reinvented the Massanutten ski experience. This winter, the region’s only employee-owned ski resort adds more snowmaking for its tubing runs and a Saturday night comedy club joins the season’s events lineup.

West Virginia

Canaan Valley, in northern West Virginia near Davis, is home to two major downhill ski areas, Canaan Valley Resorts’s State Park Ski Area and privately-owned Timberline Mountain Resort. Both crest beside the Monongahela National Forest’s lofty Dolly Sods Federal Wilderness, with 150 or so inches of annual snow.

Canaan Valley Resort’s state park ski area is winding up a $6 million investment by the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. Related improvements expected to get more of the mountain open sooner and extend late season operation.

Timberline Mountain Resort has expanded snowmaking on Salamander, the two-mile longest run in the region. The added snow will extend this long cruiser’s season, good news for both beginners and backcountry fans. The slope heads left from the summit along the Dolly Sods Wilderness boundary occasionally offering tele-tourers access into the scenic alpine-like area.

Many of the backcountry Nordic folks slipping off into those woods will be heading to White Grass Ski Touring Center, simply the best Nordic resort in theMid-Atlantic and South. Situated between Canaan Valley Ski Area and Timberline, hip, happenin’ White Grass and its historic 80-year old ski lodge is like noother cross country resort out there. With connections to the high elevation lifts at adjacent  slopes, a massive system of set track trails in between, and valley flat-tracking on the “snow farm,”

Snowshoe Mountain Resort, an Alterra Resort under the Ikon Pass program, is the biggest snow sports resort in the Middle Atlantic and southern states. Last year “the Shoe” celebrated its 50th anniversary and this ski season reaches back to its roots for the biggest single upgrade in recent years.

The half- century-old, landmark resort hub, Shavers Center, is being replaced and should open in January. Also new this winter—uphill skiing. West Virginia’s region-leading snowfall (150 to 180 or more annual inches) has always inspired the backcountry ski crowd and attracted Nordic skiers to a handful of reliable cross country centers. This winter taps that spirit by opening parts of Snowshoe’s considerable downhill terrain to alpine touring and split board uphill travel, including for headlamp-illuminated night skiing.

Winterplace Resort’s major changes this year are completion of a $2-million improvement program for new snowmaking more slope lights for night skiing, including in the Terrain Park.

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Randy Johnson

Randy Johnson is author of Southern Snow, the New Guide to Winter Sports from Maryland to the Southern Appalachians. In the 2024 Society of American Travel Writers Lowell Thomas Competition, he won Silver in the "travel book" category for Grandfather Mountain: The History and Guide to an Appalachian Icon and Honorable Mention in "travel guidebook" for Hiking the Blue Ridge Parkway. 

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