Beech Mountain Resort

Overall we were very disappointed with our experience. The customer service was nonexistent! Everywhere we went within the Beech Mountain Resort the employees were slow, unorganized and rude.
The most disappointing part was our experience was with the Burton Learn to Ride Program. We signed our 7 year old up for all day Snow Boarding lessons. From the moment we walked in the door the employees were rude and condescending. They treated the parent as though we were a nuisance. If we asked questions they became obviously annoyed. What they fail to understand is that people are entrusting them with their children, and we can and will ask as many questions as we feel necessary to ensure that our children our properly cared for and safe. After paying $ 140 for the all day program, we pulled our son out after lunch. By 2:00pm the kids had spent close to 2 hours off the snow, in the Burton store watching TV. They didn’t go on the mountain once, what little time they were on the snow was spent on the bunny slope doing very little. We actually wanted our child to learn to snowboard, we weren’t paying for a babysitter. Disappointed is an understatement! We took our son out on the mountain on our own and within an hour he was snowboarding and he loved it. We will take him again, but we will never return to Beech, I cant bring myself to give them more $$.

Totally disappointed. They started blowing snow New Year’s Eve. There is at least 4 or 5 inches of blown snow when we woke up. Kept checking the website. No updates. Finally called the resort & got a rude customer service rep who said they wouldn’t be open until maybe tomorrow. Sugar is open. Don’t waste your money. By-​pass Beech.

I worked on Beech for years. I can honestly tell you this is the worst ski experience in NC. Go to Sugar. Most of the people who work Beech have been there since the 70s and have the same mind-​set. They all think you owe them and not the other way around. Customer service is a low priority and customer satisfaction is non-​existent. The entire mountain (rentals, restaurants and ski resort) needs a major over-​haul and refurbishment. Don’t spend $ 3000 on a rental from 1979 and $ 60 lift tickets for watery or worse, icy slopes. Trust me, locals ski on Sugar.

The conditions weren’t great due to weather but ski school was amazing for my 6 and 8 year old sons. Russ had my 8 year old going down intermediate hills on his second day! JJ and DJ had my 6 year old doing runs and the chair lift on a snowboard. Just a great experience for my sons!

Beech Mountain is a beautiful hamlet in the far western mountains of NC. Definitely a summer respite if you are trying to beat the heat. It’s 100 degrees in Charlotte and 65 up here at 4500 feet.

When we went, conditions were not ideal-​so we got there early so we would have the freshest powder. The Oz run was a blue square, and great for beginners. It has it’s own lift, and we were able to knock out 3 runs quickly. We went on MLK weekend, so it was very busy. The main lift took about 30 minutes… and got longer as the day went on. We read a tip to rent gear from somewhere else, and we were glad we did because their lines for rental gear were long.

Do not go to Beech Mountain if you need the following: equipment (and by equipment I mean other important items such as a helmet and poles) lift tickets and lessons or a locker. I can not believe how unorganized the whole process is. It took two hours to get equipment, lift tickets and a lesson. Unlike other local resorts, there is no one place to get everything all at once. And considering the enormous fees they charge the whole mountain should be better run. The fact that you have to go to separate line after you pay, to get in line to pay for a helmet is RIDICULOUS and unsafe. The lady checking us in couldn’t have been ruder… Reminiscent of Nurse Ratchet. Everyone was complaining about what a disaster the place was. If you go, bring everything in… all equipment needed, food and be prepared for your shoes to be stolen because they have the dinkiest locker area. One bright spot was a lesson with Nicole. And to add insult after the ridiculous BS the ski school adds that the only way the instructors get paid is through tips. GO TO SUGAR OR APP.

My first day of skiing ever was at Beech Mountain, many years ago. The prospect of descending the mountain on skis was very scary. As I became a better skier, I moved on to other mountains, but I have always loved this place. It is a great place to visit in any season. The summers are lovely at this elevation, and the springs and fall are spectacular. The ski conditions can be variable, and one of the variables is solid ice, which is a real bummer. Overall this is a great place.

Growing up in PA I did not set my expectations high when I decided to check out a ski resort in NC while visiting family. I have to admit, after dealing with the snooty staff upon arrival I almost decided to leave. I was with a group however and decided to stay and make the most of it.
The 2^nd staff I met was the rentals group when getting a snowboard for my nephew, these people were MUCH more down to earth, friendly, and easier to talk to. Like most onsite rentals the board was pretty dry so I used my wax to give it a fresh coat.
Being the only one who snowboarded out of us I decided to buy a lesson for him hoping someone could take him through from step one and let him get a feel for the board on the bunny slope. When I got back to base I learned that the instructor was over 20 minutes late then still ended the session at the end of the hour. From what I heard the lesson was terrible and he learned more from me in 5 minutes than he did the entire time with her. She did a horrible job explaining simple maneuvers on the board and instead just tried to run with him, hold onto him, and pull his arm in the direction she wanted him to go causing him to twist his body and keep falling the entire time. He never once got more than about 30ft with her and was able to make it down the beginners slope his first time with me which I found odd.
It began to rain pretty hard so I didn’t get a chance to check out many of the runs but the ones I did explore actually weren’t too bad. If you can avoid the initial snobby staff and so-​called instructors I’d say you could definitely enjoy a day on the slopes there.

Wow! Talk about not investing back in the business. The lifts have the same chairs as were there back in the late 70’s when I first skied there. The chairs on some of the lifts are so low to the ground that you feel as if you are going to miss the chair. Many chairs on the lifts have missing slats. This is the only ski resort that I have been to that has a disclaimer on their waiver that they are not responsible for dripping oil on the chair lifts. The lifts took forever to get to the top. They run slow and stop often.
My biggest issue was with the Ski School. We had several Boy Scouts there for the first time and were trying to get the boys’ registered for ski school. What a jerk running the school. He is definitely not the person you want as the face of your ski school. Parents were signing kids up for classes and he was placing them in classes that started in 5 minutes and yelling at parents to get the equipment on the kids and be at the flag in 3 minutes. Now if you have ever tried to get boots and skis on a 10 year old kid you know that it may take 3 minutes to get one boot on. Instead of trying to get our Scouts in the next lesson in 3 minutes we decided to select the next one in an hour. Well he told me that one was full. So I told him we would take the one after that. He barked at me and told me it was full. So I said «that’s OK we’ll take the one after that.» He got mad and loudly asks why I would want to do that? I calmly told him that I wanted the boys’ to have a good experience since this was their first time and they did not have their equipment on so there was no way to meet his deadline in 3 minutes. He actually looked at me and told me that they were providing lessons in order to get skiers on the slopes as quickly as possible. They were not here for hand holding and to make you feel good. Really? Wouldn’t you want the beginner to have a good experience so they could want to come back? I watched some of the instructors give lessons and they were very polite to the students in ski school and acted the exact opposite as the manager. They offer good instruction and advice to their students.
Ski Beech itself need to me upgraded. I understand that skiing in NC can be great some years and down in others, but would a coat of paint, a few slats on lift chairs, some new flooring in the lodge hurt that much?

Being a snowboarder in the Atlanta area is somewhat limiting of choices to get some shredding time in. Either wait to book a trip up north, midwest or far west. The closest decent mountains us Atlantan’s have is usually 3+ hours away.
My friends and I skip on the closest mountain, Cataloochee. Or Crap-​a-​loochee is what I like to call it. Especially once you go out to some of the mountains of Denver, why settle for a foot hill. At least go to a bigger foot hill and less ice.
So with the different trails and decent park terrain, I definitely prefer hitting up Ski beech vs Sugar Mountain. I especially like the Oz trail which captures the feeling of a portion of the wide trails of a mountain ski resort out midwest.
There’s plenty of decent restaurants around the mountain and lodging. I would definitely recommend bringing a vehicle that is either AWD/​4WD drive as sometimes during opening the roads leading to the parking spots aren’t always cleared. Always check the weather conditions prior to driving the distance and snow reports on ski beeches website.
Happy shredding!

This review is for the kids’ ski school. Granted, I went on one of the busiest days of the year, but it’s not like they don’t know what is coming. They are wholly and completely unprepared for the Holiday rush. I will update the post with the quality of the lesson once it has been completed for my 7 year old daughter and 9 year old son. But the process of dropping them off, getting them registered, getting them rental equipment could not have been more of a clusterf*ck. For what they charge for the day for a kids ski school it is absolutely inexcusable to be that poorly organized. If you have to come, don’t do it during a holiday. If you have to come during a Holiday, just prepare yourself for a HORRIBLE experience and that way you won’t be disappointed.

Unilocal only allows 5,000 characters for me to explain how awful this place is, which is not nearly enough to include details about everything that went wrong during my visit. You can see my full review on trip advisor, since they allowed me enough space to share my entire experience.
Long in the short nothing about this place makes we want to return. I shared my poor experience we a member of manager and was told and I quote: «Well they are call expectations because thats what you expect and that is not always what you actually get».
Matt (manager) and Dean (head of ski school) who work in the ski school office have absolutely no business working in the customer service industry. They booth need to learn some general manners when it comes to dealing with customers and most importantly figure out that simply saying sorry you had a bad experience often goes along way to make people happier.
***WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT****
1. Weekend pass’s are way overpriced.
2. Add functional wi-​fi in the lodge seriously its 2013!
3. The food is awful, make it eatable or don’t serve any.
4. Revamp the entire ski school experience its awful.
5. Be honest on your website. When you say you have 15″ of base snow, I should not arrive and find grass in the middle of trails. If you don’t offer a program anymore remove it from your website.
6. Educate your snow makers to run the snow guns on the side of the trail that will result in the wind putting snow on the trails, not off the trail.
7. Fix the lifts, I shouldn’t have spent 15 minutes stuck on a lift with a snow gun pointed directly at my chair.
8. Last but not least, if a lift isn’t even there don’t put in on the trail map.
9. Teach your management staff that sometimes people just want you to say sorry for the bad experience.

Great ski mountain! Staff were very friendly during busiest weekend of the year. Private lessons always recommended over group lessons.

When I first got to Beech Mountain, I was like WHAT IS THIS. The slopes were dirty… some of the lifts were downright archaic. The only thing fancy about this place was the price tag on the lift tickets.
But I remembered, this ski season has not been great across the country due to the lack of snow, and I had made a 5-​hour drive out there from Atlanta… so I pushed away my inner Negative Nancy and started seeing the good things.
The slopes are wide open, making them beginner-​friendly and fun. I saw a lot of ballsy beginners on the more difficult slopes, but most of them were skiers (the skier-​to-​snowboarder ratio was higher than other places in NC/​east coast) so they didn’t do as much damage to the snow. The lifts were very slow, low, and flat in the loading/​unloading zone, once again making them friendly to beginners. The rest area, locker room, rental place, and parking lot all had very easy access. The staff was incredibly friendly and easy-​going.
This past weekend was Winterfest, so there were several events throughout the day, including a «Bathing Beauty» contest where you could ogle young girls in flamboyant bikinis skiing down the bunny hill and a pretty entertaining rail jam with a 1^st place prize of $ 1,000. It was all pretty low-​key and not that competitive.
I’d go back if there’s a lot of snow and if it’s during the week ($ 30 lift ticket during the week vs a whopping $ 60 on weekends).

I haven’t snowboarded at that many places, but I thought that Beech Mountain was only alright. The slopes are very short. It felt as if once I got on the slope, I would have to get on the lift again.
The chairlift was something that I did enjoy. I really liked how it would go really slow while loading and unloading, and then just be super fast when going up the mountain. I also like how there is a small shelter around the loading and unloading docks. It blocks you from the wind so that you can fix your equipment.
I wasn’t a fan of their lodge. It was big and spacious, but the seats are connected to the table, which reminded me of when I was in high school. I couldn’t pull a seat back to give myself more room. Their lunch selection was really small, and when there was a lunch rush, I felt that they should have prepared better and had more staff.
It is a quaint little resort, but I think it’s just A-​OK in my book.

Beech Mountain is not bad. It is my first skiing experience outside Colorado. Let’s be honest, next to Colorado skiing, the best you can expect are three stars. Largely, it is everything I expected it to be: The lifts are older and there aren’t tons of paths. Well, when you look at it at face value, though, it makes sense. Beech is smaller and cheaper than your Colorado ski resorts. The Colorado resorts make a whole lot more money, so they are able to produce the nicer things. Truthfully, though, if you don’t have some low expectations, you are a bit idiotic. I mean, would you be going to Carowinds expecting it to be on par with DisneyWorld? I’d hope not. Likewise, I did not go to Beech expecting Breckinridge.
The key word seems to be crowded. I (idiotically) went on a holiday weekend. I should’ve known better. Just like everyone else in the world, I hate standing in lines. That seems to be all I did for the entire day on Saturday. The first day I was there; however, it was a Friday. It was not too bad. When not crowded, it is a decent mountain.
Another thing I would like to note is that the rental fees at the resort and surrounding shops are grossly overpriced. Something that should be expected, however, in my infinite wisdom, I waited until we were on top of a mountain to get our gear. The one thing I can say is that by all means, be sure to get your gear (rental or purchased) at a shop before you drive up here.
Additionally, eat before you come, ski all day, and then leave before eating again. The cafeteria food is terrible and, well, obviously overpriced. With it being cafeteria food, I didn’t expect much, but I figured a hot dog should at least taste like a hot dog. Absolutely terrible. The only good thing about the cafeteria is that they thankfully have a bar with a couple draft beers. Much needed and deserved after a couple of hours on the slopes.
I think it does the eastern US a solid by having Beech Mountain.

Beech mountain is alright. For NC skiing you can’t ask for too much I guess. There are quite a few lifts and runs to peruse, but it shouldn’t take more than a day of skiing/​snowboarding to explore thoroughly. Unfortunately, for what you get the lift tickets are pretty overpriced. Here are some additional things to consider before you hit up Beech:
1. Go on a weekeday, weekends (especially holiday) are crazy crowded and overpriced
2. A nice way to avoid lines is to go up to the Oz Run. The run is about as good as it gets on the mountain and there is a separate lift up that some of the crowds miss at the beginning of the day.
3. Pay a few extra dollars and eat at the Beech Tree restaurant versus the cafeteria. You won’t have to scramble for a table or wait in line and you get to relax a little bit before heading back to the slopes.
4. In the A.M. if there is a line at the lift tickets window, go to the rental shop and get your equipment first (you’ll beat everyone else who is waiting for their lift tickets)

As a skier used to Colorado, I did not know what to expect for NC skiing. Here are my main thoughts:
1. Don’t go around the holidays (unless it’s pre-​Christmas). We stood in lines for hours and never got skis or made it on the mountain. We literally stood in the lift ticket line for over thirty minutes (and that was ‘short’ for many folks), the ski rental line for ages (and they were out of snowboards and low on skis), and the lesson line for an hour for my husband to practice (new skier). We didn’t succeed in getting skis or a lesson– never made it on the mountain, and left extremely disappointed and frustrated. BOTTOM LINE: DO NOT GO AROUND THE HOLIDAYS.
2. They do not sell lift tickets for multiple days, for some inexplicable reason. This means you must stand in the same line every day before skiing. This makes no sense… It frustrates the visitors, wastes time, and loses business (we chose Sugar Mountain the next day).
3. When we finally skied there a few days later, the lifts seemed to be in need of some TLC. Some are literally inches from the ground when you board and the chairs seem older and rather rickety (and uncomfortable). The plus side of the lifts was that the weather was a warm 40 degrees and drizzly, which made for shorter lines/​less people than the debacle a few days earlier (though the snow suffered). The quad lift did move fast but, as mentioned, was worn and literally inches from the ground at boarding. The Oz Run lift seemed in good shape.
4. The layout of the facilities is confusing and difficult to find your way if it’s your first time, particularly on days with high volumes of people. Everything is in separate places, hence the long line problem… You spend half your time trying to find lift ticket purchase, rentals, ski school, etc. and standing in line after line. Lift tickets should be available at the same location as the rentals to save time and frustration (this is standard in most places I’ve been to – including Sugar).
5. The signage for the runs are somewhat difficult to see/​read… and pocket mountain map is close to useless. They might be trying to encourage going paperless (a plus), but it’s still not the easiest to read. (These are admitedly minor points though.)
6. We skied neighboring Sugar Mountain after our first frustrating day at Beech, and preferred it to Beech. Easier layout (everything in one easy place), and in my opinion, better slopes and better lifts. Sugar did have long lift lines, but we still preferred it. It felt more like Colorado (a bit more professional).
7. The management at Beech was very nice. I’m sure it’s run by nice folks and, going by other reviews, they have been making improvements. I’m sure they will continue over time.
Final words: Beech is ok (particularly for the Southeast), but Sugar is better. And don’t go around the holidays.

I can’t believe no one has written a review for Beech! By far one of the best and biggest ski resorts in the area. We lucked out and went following the best snow of the season, 8 inches! Because of that the entire front of the mountain was open and the conditions were great (for North Carolina). Let’s face it, North Carolina could never compare with skiing out west or even the northeast but this was as good as it gets for this area.
Beech has the capacity to make it’s own snow and does anytime it can. The bad part is that when your skiing and get hit in the face with snow making mist it freezes you to the bone. Overall the mountain seemed well maintained.
We brought our 18 month old and used the mountain’s nursery. I must say I was a little nervous about this but it worked out great. Lisa, who was working, was kind and sweet and put us at ease. My boy took a 2 hour nap and was given a snack. For $ 7/​hr this was a bargain. He seemed to enjoy his time there and loved the murals on the walls. We got to ski have have some baby-​free time on our vacation.
Now for the cons:
Lifts and runs were not all clearly marked
Trail maps were not readily available
Staff in the lodge and on the mountain were indifferent and at times rude (one lift operator sneered at us for being too far ahead and making the lift stop momentarily)
The lodge is dated and smells musty
The locker room stinks like sweat and cigarettes
One more high point was that the staff in the rental area was helpful and friendly. Overall a great skiing experience.