Stephen LaMagna

Review of Cataloochee ski area

Cost- 4/5. Good value for cost.

Cost- 4/5. Good value for cost.
The Mountain- 4/5. For beginners.
Website- 4/5. Webcams and daily info.
Staff and service- 1/5. Cascade of failures.

My wife and I are intermediate/advanced skiers who have skied both Northeast and west- Colorado/Utah/Montana.

We were using this for two kids under 8 for second time on skis. We knew it was going to be low on acreage and not for our own skiing expectations. We paid around $200 for the four of us for a weekday lift ticket and rental. The mountain itself was great- we got real snow all day long and they were making snow. A good couple of runs to break the kids back in.

The service and rental layout were low points. Most of the staff were teenagers who were constantly talking in another language. That's absolutely ok as long as they talk to you as well courteously. The lift ticket counter people rushed us even though there were only a handful of people in line. Far from courteous. We then walked over to the boot rental- the boots and skis were in different shops. The person who gave us the boots was extremely hard to understand and wasnt helpful when we told her the boots didn't fit my daughter. We had to ask her to help get the boots on the kids and she wasn't communicating with us. Then we walked over to the skis. They were all talking in another language to each other instead of talking to us. I immediately noticed that they didn't test the boots in the skis before they gave us the skis.
"That's ok", I thought, even though the 20 other places I've been to have always tested them first. Should have checked them ourselves! We trek our way to the mountain and up the lift to find out almost all of our skis would not get in properly. We were told to go back to the shop. We refused and asked if they could help us right there. The young man eventually had mercy on us and helped us adjust them. When people fell off the people mover/belt, (one time was my daughter) the young staff weren't watching and had zero reaction time. They had to be flagged down to help.

From there on, the skiing itself and mountain were decent because we had snow- real and fake. It is small but good.