The State of North Carolina’s Two Biggest Ski Resorts Since 1967

Night Skiing at Beech Mountain Resort
Image Credit: Beech Mountain Resort, Link to Image

When I tell people I take frequent day trips to go skiing in the South, many of them don’t even believe skiing is possible down in North Carolina. However, these mountains are home to me and the only reasonable access to skiing growing up. In fact, it acts as a first experience for many people in the South. It serves as a great source of income for Boone, NC and allows tourism to flourish in this area. With Sugar Mountain and Beech Mountain merely 15 minutes away from each other, skiers can pick and choose freely which mountain to enjoy (or even both!). How can skiing even be possible at such a southern geographic? How can an area that only received 56.7’’ of snow this season have enough snow to ski on? These mountains sit on the Appalachian Mountains and boast the highest elevation mountains on the East Coast. Both mountains are equipped with high-tech snowmaking machines that are blowing snow every chance possible. This allows the ski resorts to have a relatively strong base even with streaks of unseasonably warm weather. This video will look into the history, the good, and the bad of Sugar and Beech Mountain.

On Ski Slopes at Sugar Mountain
Image Credit: Alex Grichenko, CC0 Public Domain, Link to Image

Special thanks to Skimap.org, Beech Mountain Resort, Derek DiLuzio, and r/Referee27 for allowing me to use their images in this project!

Bibliography

Beech Mountain Resort. (n.d.). “News Archives.” Beech Mountain Resort. https://www.beechmountainresort.com/category/news/

Beech Mountain Ski Resort. Skimap.org, https://skimap.org/skiAreas/view/287.

Beech Mountain Resort. (2022, March 23). Terrain Redesign, New Chairlifts, and Increased Snowmaking Capacity. Beech Mountain Resort. Retrieved from https://www.beechmountainresort.com/2022/03/23/terrain-redesign-new-chairlifts-and-increased-snowmaking-capacity/

Dailymail.Com, A. G. F. (2022, January 8). Skiers doused by freezing water while traveling down Beech Mountain Resort on ski-lift. Daily Mail Online. Retrieved from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10382629/Skiers-doused-freezing-water-traveling-Beech-Mountain-resort-ski-lift.html

Dawson, J., et al. “Climate Change Analogue Analysis of Ski Tourism in the Northeastern USA.” Climate Research, vol. 39, no. 1, Inter-Research Science Center, (2009): 1–9.

Denning, Andrew. Skiing into Modernity: A Cultural and Environmental History. 1st ed., Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2015.

Falk, Martin. “Are Multi-Resort Ski Conglomerates More Efficient?” Managerial and Decision Economics, no. 8 (2009): 529–538.

Haugom, Erik, and Iveta Malasevska. “The Relative Importance of Ski Resort- and Weather Related Characteristics When Going Alpine Skiing.” Cogent Social Sciences, vol. 5, no. 1 (2019).

High Country Press. “Sugar Top Resort: New Challenges, New Controversy, and Now a New Board.” High Country Press. https://www.hcpress.com/front-page/sugar-top-resort-new-challenges-new-controversy-and-now-a-new-board.html

Milton S. Heath Jr., The North Carolina Mountain Ridge Protection Act, 63 N.C. L. Rev. 183 (1984).

Robert Steiger, Daniel Scott, Bruno Abegg, Marc Pons & Carlo Aall. “A Critical Review of Climate Change Risk for Ski Tourism, Current Issues in Tourism”, Taylor & Francis, (2017).

Sugar Mountain Resort. Skimap.org. (n.d.). https://skimap.org/SkiAreas/view/290

Sugar Mountain Resort, Inc. “Sugar mountain stats.” Sugar Mountain Resort. http://www.skisugar.com/sugar-mountain-stats/

Sugar Mountain Resort, Inc. “Timeline.” Sugar Mountain Resort. http://www.skisugar.com/timeline/

Village Hall of Sugar Mountain. “Sugar Mountain History.” Sugar Mountain, North Carolina. https://seesugar.com/our-story/

Author

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *