ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Monday, February 10, 1997              TAG: 9702120021
SECTION: SPORTS                   PAGE: B-6  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR 

SKIERS WERE SPOILED LAST SEASON; NOW IT IS REALITY TIME MOTHER NATURE AND SOUTHEASTERN SKI RESORTS KISS AND MAKE UP

The two have had a hot-and-cold relationship this season. Now it looks as if they are patching up to make the best of the remainder of the skiing/snowboarding year.

One of the problems of the current season is it simply hasn't been able to live up to the previous one.

``Last season spoiled people,'' said Joe Stephens, director of public relations at Snowshoe/Silver Creek Ski Resort in West Virginia. It was a record in every way: record number of skiers and snowboaders, record snowfall, record number of skiing days and record revenues.

Record is not the term likely to be used when this season is remembered.

``Unusual'' is the word selected by Sepp Kober, who has seen 36 seasons come and go as director of skiing at The Homestead in Hot Springs.

``Fascinating'' is what you hear from David Zunker, director of ski sales at Wintergreen, near Waynesboro. The season started with a boom, then stalled and has taken off again like a slalom skier trying to make up for lost time after a spill.

Even before the snow guns began their assault on the slopes this past fall, enthusiasm was unbridled.

``There is tremendous enthusiasm coming off a season like we had last year,'' Zunker said. It is displayed in advanced reservations and in equipment and clothing sales. When the enthusiasm roared into the Christmas season, it a bare spot head-on.

Kober described the important Christmas-to-New Year's period as a ``disaster.'' Skiing was pretty much limited to child's play at The Homestead. Adults stayed home, went elsewhere or spent their time ice skating, horseback riding or playing golf. Some took out their frustration on The Homestead's challenging sporting-clays range.

Then, skiing conditions got worse. The Homestead ski operation was closed for the first eight days of January.

``That's a long time,'' Kober said.

At Wintergreen, many guests showed up with golf equipment rather than skiing gear - or brought both. College students on winter break were tailgating in the parking lots and showing up on the slopes for what skiing there was in T-shirts and shorts - and ``having a wonderful time,'' Zunker said.

``We were down to some pretty skimpy skiing that first week in January, but came back real strong with temperatures dropping,'' Zunker said.

The temperatures didn't just drop. They crashed. The thermometer fell in love with zero.

``We were making snow around the clock,'' Stephens of Snowshoe/Silver Creek.

But the wind chill dipped to such scary depths only the hearty took advantage of the powder, and then only in brief spurts.

``Sixty-five degrees below zero wind chill stops people from skiing,'' said Stephens.

Then came more moderate temperatures, and last week - finally - more typical ski weather began to show up. Snow even fell.

``We are 100 percent open on all [52] of our snow-making trails,'' Stephens said. ``We are tracking the same number of skiers as year before last, when we had close to 400,000.''

Last year, Snowshoe reported a record 410,000 skiers, along with a record 285 inches of natural snow. This season, the snowfall is about 100 inches short of that pace, but Stephens sees little reason why skiing won't extend well into April. If so, it will be remembered as a decent season.

``What hurts, ski shops all of a sudden are doing their end-of-the-season sales,'' he said. ``People who hear about end-of-the-season ski sales don't just think it is the end of the season at ski shops. They think it is the end of the season at the ski slopes.''

Next weekend, the long one when the Presidents Day holiday is celebrated, holds special importance for ski resorts.

``A successful season depends on a successful Christmas Week, a successful Martin Luther King weekend and a successful Presidents Day weekend,'' Zunker said.

``It looks good for Presidents Day,'' said Kober, scanning a long-range weather report. But as for catching up on lost Christmas-to-New Year's revenue, ``You can't make it up,'' he said. ``There is just not enough time; not enough days.''

By early February, the crowds were returning to Wintergreen, Zunker said. Skiers appear to have caught on to the idea that they must squeeze in more skiing in a shorter period of time.

``They just can't spread it out like they did last year,'' Zunker said. ``Last year was a remarkable year, but the past two weeks our numbers have been stronger than they were during comparable weeks last year. We are looking for a strong finish.''

LENGTH: Medium:   96 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. For much of the season, 
          Southeastern ski runs such as these at Massanutten have looked as if
          they were white veins across the face of the mountains. Man-made 
          snow has been the lifeblood of the industry during a difficult year.
          color.