Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:30 am
This was my first trip to Beech Mountain for skiing. We stopped by last year to scout it out while in the area for a few days of skiing, but in hind sight made a poor decision to go to AppSki instead. Our thoughts then were that Beech looked run down and very "country".
After lurking around the boards a bit over the past year or so, I saw where Beech receive a lot of positived feedback from the subscribers here. Due to this, I was determined to check it out this year. So yesterday we drove over from Raleigh and picked up a $20 day lift ticket.
I wasn't expecting the best of snow given the time of year and would have to say that initially I was bummed at the "wet granular". I learned to accept it for what it was and enjoyed what I had (beats work where I normally would be on a Friday). After noon it softened up a bunch and was very wet, but nearly as much crunching going on. It was very unforgiving if I were to catch an edge by collecting a lot of wet snow. I still plan to head over Wintergreen next week anticipating similar snow.
The runs were all pretty well covered. White Lightning and Oz were missing some snow on the edges. As you can see in one of the pics below, they had to shovel in show for the bridge to Oz. Power Bowl had some huge mounds that I really enjoyed cruising over.
The quad lift went down for maybe an hour in the afternoon, but other than that they were working well and there wasn't a line to be found all day long. We got a ton of runs in. We didn't do much on Oz since it felt a little short and the lift was slow. Overall I felt like we practically had the place to ourselves.
The weather was mid 50s and very foggy with some rain starting from 12:30. The combination of rain and fog kept me off of Southern Star since I was struggling to see the terrain (bumps, moguls). The rain itself really didn't bother me or make me cold at all. My gloves were the only thing that saturated. All my other outer layers did a good job keeping the wet out (not perfect).
My personal thoughts on Beech: After skiing mostly Sugar in the area, I have to say that I absolutely love the high speed quad lift at Beech. I grow very tired of the lift up to the Sugar Summit, especially when it is cold out. I think that Sugar has much better/varied/fun terrain. Although both pale in comparison to Snowshoe where I finally a few weeks ago for the first time. I thought the facilities at Beech were very dated, but I guess that isn't a big deal since I am there to be on the snow. Note that the View Haus is the only food/drink facility open this time of the season. I will be back thanks to the quad lift.
Oh yea, the beer selection the View Haus is terrible. Not one I.P.A. available!!
Sorry for the poor quality pics, but I forgot my camera and we had to use a pair of camera phones instead.
After lurking around the boards a bit over the past year or so, I saw where Beech receive a lot of positived feedback from the subscribers here. Due to this, I was determined to check it out this year. So yesterday we drove over from Raleigh and picked up a $20 day lift ticket.
I wasn't expecting the best of snow given the time of year and would have to say that initially I was bummed at the "wet granular". I learned to accept it for what it was and enjoyed what I had (beats work where I normally would be on a Friday). After noon it softened up a bunch and was very wet, but nearly as much crunching going on. It was very unforgiving if I were to catch an edge by collecting a lot of wet snow. I still plan to head over Wintergreen next week anticipating similar snow.
The runs were all pretty well covered. White Lightning and Oz were missing some snow on the edges. As you can see in one of the pics below, they had to shovel in show for the bridge to Oz. Power Bowl had some huge mounds that I really enjoyed cruising over.
The quad lift went down for maybe an hour in the afternoon, but other than that they were working well and there wasn't a line to be found all day long. We got a ton of runs in. We didn't do much on Oz since it felt a little short and the lift was slow. Overall I felt like we practically had the place to ourselves.
The weather was mid 50s and very foggy with some rain starting from 12:30. The combination of rain and fog kept me off of Southern Star since I was struggling to see the terrain (bumps, moguls). The rain itself really didn't bother me or make me cold at all. My gloves were the only thing that saturated. All my other outer layers did a good job keeping the wet out (not perfect).
My personal thoughts on Beech: After skiing mostly Sugar in the area, I have to say that I absolutely love the high speed quad lift at Beech. I grow very tired of the lift up to the Sugar Summit, especially when it is cold out. I think that Sugar has much better/varied/fun terrain. Although both pale in comparison to Snowshoe where I finally a few weeks ago for the first time. I thought the facilities at Beech were very dated, but I guess that isn't a big deal since I am there to be on the snow. Note that the View Haus is the only food/drink facility open this time of the season. I will be back thanks to the quad lift.
Oh yea, the beer selection the View Haus is terrible. Not one I.P.A. available!!
Sorry for the poor quality pics, but I forgot my camera and we had to use a pair of camera phones instead.
Hope to get there by 9:15. :rolleyes: