Staff were all nice, and the facilities are okay. ...

Staff were all nice, and the facilities are okay. Night skiing is set up well, too, except for having to deal with the snow makers blasting you. It s relatively inexpensive, too, although I m comparing that to Vermont, which is pricey for the Northeast.

The lack of stars here is actually not about the mountain itself, though it is small, or any of the facilities...more about the other people that ski here. The mountain seemed to be full of true beginners that had zero regard for their own health and safety, much less yours. I d say about 75% of the other skiers had absolutely no business being anywhere other than the bunny slope, yet were throwing hell to the wind and going all the way to the top. Honestly I saw about 10x more extreme wipe outs than I ve ever seen at any other mountain (and I ve skied US, Canada and Europe many times). Also a significant number of beginners not wearing helmets, which is insane and probably something Cataloochee should make mandatory. I m not a stuffy ski etiquette kind of guy, but my wife was shouted at by someone higher on the mountain than her to get out of the way , and both of us had people ski over our skis on the hill and on the lifts multiple times. My wife also took a lesson and said the instructor was also a beginner skier, and wasn t able to impart much more than the very basics.

If it s a quiet day, and you know what you re doing on the hill, then Cataloochee seems like a decent mountain at a very good price, but I wouldn t recommend it any other time because of the amount of nubes that don t seem to care about using you as their emergency brake.