The rest of the economy might have suffered, but a couple of snowy winters are adding up to big bucks and good times for North Carolina’s ski industry.

Last year, the total economic impact of this segment of the state’s economic pie amounted to $146 million. That number is courtesy of the N.C. Ski Areas Association, which crunched and computed the figures for the 2009-2010 season and recently released its findings.

That good news doesn’t come as a surprise for ski industry workers such as Brittany Heatherly of Skis and Tees in Maggie Valley, who said the store was running out of rental equipment by 10 a.m. each day during the Christmas break.

“It’s been awesome,” Heatherly said. “Everybody is making a lot of money, and having fun. There have been a lot of people because it has been such good weather.”

(Clarification to readers: “Good weather” to the skiing industry would be the snow and cold many people have a difficult time dealing with.)

Heatherly, an avid snowboarder, said skiers and other winter-weather lovers didn’t let road conditions prevent them from getting to the slopes at resorts such as Cataloochee in Haywood County. Folks used four-wheel drive vehicles or put chains on their car tires.

N.C. Ski Areas Association defines “economic value” as the total value to the economy from the existence of ski areas. Winter value, employment value, capital improvements and economic multipliers were considered. The study looked from November to March as the “ski season” when compiling this report.

North Carolina has six ski areas: Cataloochee Ski Area, Sapphire Valley Ski Area, Ski Beech, Appalachian Ski Mountain, Wolf Ridge Ski Resort and Sugar Mountain Ski Resort.

Collectively, these ski areas provided 96 year-round jobs and 1,557 seasonal jobs during last year’s ski season. The industry generated over $32 million in gross revenue from ski area operations, including lift tickets, lessons, equipment rental, retail stores and food and beverages.

David Huskins, who heads the regional tourism group Smoky Mountain Host that is headquartered outside Franklin, said the rockslide and subsequent closure of Interstate 40 in the Pigeon Gorge section of Haywood County “obviously … impacted our region’s ski economy.”

“But, generally, reports are that it was offset by the continued natural snowfall through December-March 2010,” he added. “Good news for our region.”

Money breakdown on individuals at ski areas

(Per person spending, and percent of total)

Lift tickets/tubing/ice skating: $44.78; 33.5%

Ski/snowboard lessons: $5.75; 4.8%

Equipment rental/demo at ski area: $13.81; 10.7%

Equipment rental/demo at other N.C. locations: $1.97; 1.4%

Food/beverage/restaurants on mountain/base: $16.88; 13.2%

Food/beverage/restaurants in other N.C. cities: $14.22; 9.8%

Lodging accommodations (nightly rate): $18.88;14.4%

Shopping/gifts/souvenirs/retail stores: $9.04; 6.6%

Entertainment/activities: $3.85; 3.0%

Local transportation/rental car: $1.54; 1.6%

Other spending: $0.98; 0.9%

Total per person spending: $131.70  

Source: N.C. Ski Areas Association

09-10 statistics at N.C. ski areas

Total Visits: 671,554

Total Revenue: $32,526,608

Year-Round Employees: 96

Seasonal Employees: 1,557

Capital Expenditures: $3,341,237

Source: N.C. Ski Areas Association

Cataloochee Ski Area in Maggie Valley is off to another strong start to its season.

“We’ve been open since Nov. 6,” said Cataloochee General Manager Chris Bates. “We have a base of anywhere between 18 to 80 inches. And the weather for snowmaking looks great for the next couple of weeks.”

Currently there are 11 trails and three lifts operating over a groomed surface.

Despite a lot of equipment upgrades during this offseason, Cataloochee ticket prices will remain the same for this season and all of the ski area’s great programs like Family Day, which starts Jan. 12, will be in place.

According to Bates, last Sunday’s partnership with Haywood Christian Ministries drew its largest crowd ever.

“And we are happy to be able to partner with them to make a difference in the community,” he said.

Additions to enhance skiing at Cataloochee this year include 30 new snowmakers and two new grooming tractors. Bates said the advance in equipment and computerization since Cataloochee revamped in 2004 has been amazing. “It’s like going from a car that gets 18 miles to the gallon to one that gets 35 miles to the gallon.”

The new equipment and dip in temperatures are really aiding Cataloochee’s snowmaking abilities. “We can make snow at 28 degrees,” Bates said, “but with the new equipment and technology, when the temperature falls to 7 degrees, like now, our capacity increases 25 fold.”

Cataloochee also boasts over 4,000 sets of snow sports equipment. According to Bates that includes 700 new pairs of rental skis.

The Cataloochee Ski Patrol began in 1961 as a group of friends who enjoyed skiing at the new Cataloochee Ski Hill, the first ski area to open south of Pennsylvania. As Cataloochee Ski Area grew and became more popular, it’s Ski Patrol grew and became more professional.

Today’s Cataloochee Ski Patrol is still a group of friends who love skiing on the local mountain, but their numbers have grown to more than 100 counting paid staffers and volunteers. And they are all highly trained professionals with a minimum of 80 hours of Outdoor Emergency Care (OEC) training.

According to Wayne Morgan, director of Cataloochee’s Ski Patrol for the past seven years, OEC is a worldwide standard established and regulated by the National Ski Patrol. The National Ski Patrol system is composed of more than 625 patrols with more than 26,000 members across the U.S., Asia and Europe.

“That standard is the same across the board,” Morgan said.

Dan Greene, the representative for Cataloochee Ski Patrol volunteers, said the OEC program is designed “to prepare individuals from all walks of life and all backgrounds from the high school graduate to the PhD to work side by side providing the same level of care.”

ALSO READ: Cataloochee’s 50th season off to a great white start

Slope safety

“The focus of Ski Patrol is safety on the slope,” Morgan said. And that begins with the slope itself.

“We survey the slope for any kind of hazards that might be a danger to skiers,” he said. That could be anything from holes to ridges that develop that could bump skiers into a different flow of traffic to snowmaking equipment.

“North Carolina law mandates that all snowmaking equipment be marked, so we flag all the equipment plus any other hazards we see,” Morgan said.

“We are most visible in that we provide rescue and first aid,” said Greene. “That’s what Ski Patrol is known for. But the overarching principle is safety on the course, whether it’s the slope itself or skiers on the slope.”

“We don’t like being policemen, but it’s part of the job,” Morgan said. “We try to be proactive, rather than reactive,” he said, but still it’s a tough job.

“Face it,” Greene said, “we’re dealing with a public that doesn’t necessarily show a lot of common sense all the time.”

Morgan said that how Ski Patrol is perceived on the slope usually has to do with the attitude of the skier. “If we see people doing unsafe things and have to intervene, they may not be happy to see us.

“I’ve been on the slope slowing people down, and I’ll have some people cussing me and some will stop and pat me on the back and say thanks — good job — we’re glad you’re out here,” Morgan said.

The job

The basic training to become a patroller begins with OEC training.

“That course is usually between 80 and 110 hours and begins in the summer,” Morgan said. “OEC test are given the first or second week in November.”

Morgan said that one of obstacles the National Ski Patrol’s Southern Division has is finding competent skiers. The Southern Division runs from West Virginia to Alabama and includes Cataloochee, Beech Mountain, Ober Gatlinburg, Wolf Ridge, Wintergreen, Massanutten, Appalachian, Sugar Mountain and other southern ski areas.

“Here in the Southern Division we have smaller mountains and we don’t have that real skier mentality. Great skiers don’t flock here, like they do at Vail or Whistler to join the Ski Patrol. So we’ve created a ski school in our division and each slope has at least one PSIA [Professional Ski Instructors of America] certified instructor. We’re really fortunate here at Cataloochee. Our guys are really enthused and we have about 10 PSIA instructors on our patrol.”

After a Ski Patrol candidate has successfully completed OEC training, they must pass a basic ski and toboggan course (S&T) to become a basic patroller.

“The toboggan is basically a stretcher or litter on a sled, designed to transport an injured person off the hill,” said Greene. “There are very specific skills required to handle them.”

Morgan said Cataloochee has about a dozen toboggans that ski patrol stashes at strategic points along the slopes so that they will be accessible in an emergency.

“To become a basic patroller, a candidate must pass an S&T test on the hardest slope at his area,” said Morgan. “To progress to a senior patroller, the basic patroller must pass an S&T test on the toughest slope in their region. Our senior patrollers have to pass their test on Mogul Ridge at Ober Gatlinburg.”

And the rigors only get tougher to become certified in S&T. According to Morgan, of the more than 26,000 members of the National Ski Patrol there are only about 7,000 who are certified in S&T.

But that doesn’t mean your care is compromised. The ski patrol candidate has the same OEC skills as the certified patroller.

“As your level increases from candidate, to basic, to senior patroller you acquire more and better management skills regarding multiple traumas and managing an accident scene but OEC is OEC,” Morgan said.

“We’re somewhere between a wilderness responder and a paramedic. We have victims in a hostile environment and we have to stabilize them and get them out of that environment, then assess the injury and decide the proper course of action.”

And every patroller is trained to do that whether he is a candidate or certified said Morgan.

All National Ski Patrol members have to renew their certification every three years. Their continuing education is done once a year and the course topics and structure is mandated by the National Ski Patrol so that any patroller could walk into a course anywhere and get the credit needed for that year.

Morgan said that during the week he generally had five or six patrollers on the slope. On the weekends ski patrol duties generally fall to Greene’s volunteers and because of the extended hours they run two shifts and generally have between eight and 10 patrollers on the slope.

The volunteers

This is Dan Greene’s first year as patrol representative, but he has more than 20 years experience as a patroller. Volunteers have to pass the same tests and meet the same requirements as paid patrollers, they are just rewarded in a different way — free skiing. According to Greene all volunteers have a set rotation that they are required to fill, but other than that they ski at any time.

“They can also patrol at any time and there are added benefits to putting in more hours. The management here is very generous and we get rewarded with complimentary tickets,” Greene said.

For Greene, who lives in Atlanta, it’s the love of the sport.

“I do a lot of volunteering in other areas as well, but I love to ski. I love the sport. It’s something my family and I have enjoyed for years, and I see this as a way of giving back to the sport. And, selfishly, it gives me a reason to come up here and play in the snow.”

Got what it takes?

If you are interested in becoming a ski patroller you can visit Cataloochee’s website at www.cataloocheeskipatrol.org/id2.html or contact Wayne Morgan by phone at 828.926.0285, ext. 316 or by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Morgan notes that there are other benefits to becoming OEC certified.

“I was able to use my OEC certification to work the Olympics in Atlanta,” he said. He also noted that many rafting companies were adopting OEC as their standard of care and venues like Asheville’s mountain sports festival and area mountain bike races welcomed volunteers with OEC certification.

Cataloochee Ski Area opened for the season on Saturday, Nov. 6, making it one of the first resorts in the east to start skiing for the fifth year in a row.

The resort will open on Saturday and Sundays only for now, with skiing from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. (check the resort’s website at www.cataloochee.com for the most up-to-date information on hours and conditions)

Cataloochee — North Carolina’s first ski area which is now in its 49th season — spent more than $1.2 million in capital improvements this summer, including the purchase of two new Pisten Bully snow groomers and the installation of 13,000 feet of snowmaking pipeline.  The area has also replaced 24 snowmaking guns with new, more efficient, automatic fanguns and installed a new efficient six-stick automatic snowgun system on the Alley Cat Racing Trail.  

Additional improvements have been made to the area’s rental fleet with the replacement of all adult boots and 700 adult skis in their main rental shop. Cataloochee has also added a second terrain park on the mountain with four new snow guns.  

“We continue to expand our snowmaking system which allows us to utilize these early colder temperatures and allow us to open as early as we can,” said Chris Bates, Cataloochee’s vice president and general manager. “We remain committed to our customers in providing the most skiing and riding time we can each season and will continue to make snow and open early each year.”

For seasoned Smoky Mountain outdoor enthusiasts, snow in the forecast means the chance to indulge suppressed fantasies. Whether its getting fresh tracks on some obscure slope they see on the road to work or heading up to the blocked-off Blue Ridge Parkway to enjoy a de facto ski slope, most people have a plan for when the snow falls.

Juan and Alex Pena have lived in Maggie Valley for six years. After past snowstorms, they’ve hiked to the upper meadows at Cataloochee and skied Thunder Bowl, but on Saturday they wound up Soco Road to the Parkway entrance with their cross-country skis.

Just past the gate blocking Parkway, Juan said the turnout was crowded with sledders and snow-gawking motorists.

“There were a bunch of people tubing and sledding at the entrance,” Pena said. “There were even some people who never saw snow before. We just skied past them, and then we had fresh tracks.”

The Penas went up the Parkway toward Cherokee all the way to Heintooga Ridge through about a foot and a half of fresh snow.

“I just love the feel of fresh powder. The way it grabs,” said Juan. “You could still kick and glide and it tracked really nicely.”

After a beautiful ski, Juan and Alex headed into Maggie for dinner. When they got home, their driveway was still impassable, even with chains on their truck.

“We just had to walk back up the driveway in the moonlight,” Juan said.

If you’ve visited the outdoors store at Mast General Store in Waynesville, you’ve probably seen Brent McCoy. The Kitty Hawk native grew up surfing the Outer Banks but he traded that lifestyle for the mountains six months ago.

What’s a lonely surfer to do after a snowstorm? McCoy said he’d had his eye on a steep slope above his father-in-law’s goat pasture out in Crabtree, so on Sunday he hiked straight uphill with his snowboard on his back.

“I’ve been thinking of ways to get down it,” McCoy said. “I was thinking I could get a dirt board and ride down it. It worked out pretty good because I’ve been eyeballing that thing for a while.”

McCoy revealed his surfer roots by complaining of the walk up the hill to get first tracks in what he estimated was two and a half feet of powder.

“I was pretty beat last night,” McCoy said. “I was like ‘We need to get a helicopter if we’re going to do this tomorrow.’”

Now that’s a thought –– heli skiing the Smokies.

By Julia Merchant • Staff Writer

Snow is once again blowing at the Cataloochee Ski Area in Maggie Valley, marking the official start of the winter ski season in Western North Carolina.

By Michael Beadle

Once again Cataloochee Ski Area will be hosting a series of once-a-week skiing and snowboarding classes this season designed exclusively for women. It’s called Women on Wednesdays, or WOW, and it targets women of all ages and abilities who are interested in learning to ski or snowboard or who want to improve their skills on the slopes.