Last week, according to SkiSoutheast.com, between 18 and 22 inches of snow fell in North Carolina’s high country, more snow is falling (Ski Beech reported 9 inches of new snow overnight), and snow is expected to fall throughout the week. That’s good news for the state’s downhill ski industry, although cold temperatures alone is enough to make ski areas and their sophisticated snowmaking operations happy. The true benefactors of this ongoing dump of Mother Nature’s own?
Category Archives: Winter sports
This weekend: wayfind, paddle, ski
Wayfinding, warm water kayaking, winging your way down a mountain — it’s all happening in North Carolina this weekend.
Coast
Sometimes luring the recalcitrant into the outdoors is simply a matter of offering the right bait. A mere walk in a cold forest may not appeal to someone more involved in cerebral pursuits, but throw in a map, a compass and the opportunity to calculate your way over hill and dale and suddenly a hike doesn’t seem so bad. Sunday at 2 p.m. just such an opportunity will be offered at Cliffs of the Neuse State Park near Goldsboro, when a park ranger leads a beginner course in map reading and using the compass. (If you have a compass, bring it; otherwise, the park has some spares you can use.) It’s free and should last about an hour and a half.
Dealing with disappointment
I wanted to surf, but grew up a thousand miles from the nearest ocean. I wanted to be a synchronized swimmer, but the only guys who did it were these two. I wanted to play pro football, but my hair hurt when I took off the helmet. So I did other things. Things that a 12-year-old didn’t have to hitchhike a thousand miles to do. Things it was socially acceptable for guys to do. Things that didn’t hurt my hair.
Winter as it happens! @ JoeAGoGo!
Everyone in the Triangle is atwitter over the looming winter weather event, which, according to whom you’re listening, could bring rain, a dusting, enough snow to cancel a planned trucking in of snow to Cary’s Bond Park, enough snow to make Vancouver envious. And we’re atwitter as well, meaning you can follow the advance of this storm of the century/decade/year/month/weekend on our Twitter feed, at JoeAGoGo. Every hour or so we’ll tweet live from our back deck on the advance of this highly anticipated winter weather event. It’s the only weather coverage of this storm that you can count on because we’re reporting it live! As it happens!
Sled (& ski) the Triangle
I’m a sucker for a good snow forecast, and far more often than not I get burned. But on the off-chance the current forecast for a major winter weather event in the Triangle holds true, I would be remiss not to share some of the best places to take your boogie board on Saturday and repurpose it as a sled. Granted, just about any slope — and there are lots of ‘em in most Piedmont neighborhoods — will suffice. But for big hill thrills, try these: