A White Ski Christmas

My family spent a few days at Christmas in the North Carolina mountains. On the day before Christmas, we went skiing at Cataloochee in Maggie Valley. Cataloochee is a small eastern ski area with 3 lifts and 16 slopes. Recent snowstorms in the NC mountains gave a nice solid base for skiing.

We got lost on the way there and ended up driving past the Cherokee Casino. What a spectacular sight to see – a tiny island of glitzy Las Vegas in the middle of the boonies! We also saw the blue ridge parkway and the quaint town of Maggie Valley before finally finding our way to Cataloochee.

Thankfully, the ski place was not at all crowded! No lines at all at the ticket counter or rental area – and best of all, no lines on the ski lifts! To top it off, the weather was perfect at 40 degrees and sunny. Cataloochee has two bunny hills, some nice green slopes, a few blues, only two black slopes, which weren’t really all that hard. We spent most of the day on the green slopes. The skiing was fun and the mountain scenery was fantastic. Later on we tested our skill on the blue slopes, and everybody did okay there, too. I was happy that all five of us remembered how to ski after taking a few years off.

At the end of the day, I got brave went all the way to the top of the mountain to try out the black diamond slopes. It looked scarey looking down the slopes from the top, but it really wasn’t all that hard. Later on, I tried the moguls on the steepest, iciest slope of all. I completely wiped out there. Haha, it was fun, but I thought it best to avoid that one the rest of the day.