Roan Mountain 4/7/2009

[skipanther]

Only @ Timberline can somebody ski the woods and that's only if you look like you know what your doing and it's "inbounds"!The other ski areas of the southeast ,you have to stay on the designated trails,the word "inbounds" doesn't apply!

[sirtalkmuch]

@skipanther 205212 wrote:Only @ Timberline can somebody ski the woods and that's only if you look like you know what your doing and it's "inbounds"!The other ski areas of the southeast ,you have to stay on the designated trails,the word "inbounds" doesn't apply!



I have been pretty deep in the woods at Cataloochee and you can laugh at that if you want to, but I consider it out of bounds if you have to go over a barbed wire fence to get there.

[SteepNdeep]

@k2josh 205162 wrote:I think it's funny how terrain in NC is being refferred to as "in bounds"...



LOL





Joshua-- Max Patch has been on my mind also, is the road up to it accessible year round?

[skiatlanta]

ok, looks like im gonna try to hit up max patch sat morning/afternoon. paying for lift tickets sucks and i'd rather have a chill day skiing freshies and hiking than getting 5 untracked runs at cataloochee.

[skipanther]

@sirtalkmuch 205223 wrote:I have been pretty deep in the woods at Cataloochee and you can laugh at that if you want to, but I consider it out of bounds if you have to go over a barbed wire fence to get there.I'm not saying people don't go in the woods at other places,just don't let ski patrol catch you,especially Sugar,SS might be a little leniant if you look like you know what you're doing.,like on a powder day(western t)!If you crossed over a barbed wire fence,you were probably out of bounds!

[Joshua8200]

@SteepNdeep 205237 wrote:

Joshua-- Max Patch has been on my mind also, is the road up to it accessible year round?



My first thought would be...I don't know. I don't really even know how to get up there. I googled/mapquested it once, but it's not an area that I'm very familiar with.



TN-143 or NC-261 through Carver's Gap is maintained throughout the winter. However, when I went to Roan Mtn after the December snowstorm the TN side had not been plowed on Monday (about 2 days after the snow). The NC side had been plowed to the asphalt though.



There were, literally, what looked like a handful of tire tracks going up TN-143. However one guy had been trying to get up to Carver's Gap all morning in a Subaru and as he passed me backing down the mountain said "He'd already had to back down the mountain twice (this was his 3rd time backing down)." An old F-150 that looked lifted and on somewhat larger than factory tires was on its way down Roan Mtn, they said they'd made it to Carver's Gap...barely. I made it up in a my 4Runner, factory/standard setup...with some trouble.



This isn't supposed to be as big a snow as December. But I don't know anything about the road up to Max Patch.

[skiatlanta]

@skipanther 205245 wrote:I'm not saying people don't go in the woods at other places,just don't let ski patrol catch you,especially Sugar,SS might be a little leniant if you look like you know what you're doing.,like on a powder day(western t)!If you crossed over a barbed wire fence,you were probably out of bounds!



you do realize that you can ski in the trees at cataloochee. Ski patrol wont care if you know what you are doing and have a helmet.

[skipanther]

That's pretty cool then,never skied there,it's farther than Banner Elk.Wonder if there is any old snow left in the woods up there,need a base layer of snow,otherwise it's scrape and gouge!

[Rangband]

I used to live on the west side of Roan mountain about 4,000ft and Have been all over it on foot, summer and winter. Used to keep a min-max temp gage up on top on a fir tree hidden in the woods and I would ride motorcycle as far up the trail as I could then walk the last mile. On the west side there are two ridges leading away from the mountain. One to the south side has eagle's cliff. The north ridge has a perfect pitch for skiing and is populated by big nice sugar maple trees.



The trees are spaced out like 20-40ft apart typically with smaller very little to no underbrush. You would need a good 2ft+ to ski it so the random log isn't too much of an obstacle. IMO roan mountain could be made into one of the biggest ski areas east of the Mississippi. As neat as that would be however I would hate to see such a beautiful place commercialized.



The ski out on the bottom of the ridge line I described will take you to the small town of Buladean NC.



The top part of the mountain above the 5000ft mark is way too dense without a cut trail to be able to ski. And as the original poster noted the Balds are quite frequently windblown with minimal snow.



http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 7&t=p&z=15



http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 3&t=h&z=16



The road you see is the 2nd road on the left on the way up to the top part of roan mtn. It is an old forest service road (way to flat to ski) The red trail leading from the road down the mountain traverses the mountain horizontally at first then starts down the mountain, the steeper face part it is switchbacks. The small red trail cuts back thru the dense fir forest back to the last parking lot on the top of the mountain.



In any case just some of my thoughts on the area. One of these days I may try it out myself after a big snow since the family still has 88 acres up there.



Almost all if not all the area outlined in Blue is National park land so no private land except the very end if you skied it out.

[skipink]

Nice way to introduce yourself! Welcome.