CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- Donna Ferguson hit the slopes of Canaan Valley Resort and didn't experience the 70-degree weather and large patches of ice and dirt that ruined a ski trip last year.

Like many eastern U.S. resorts, the flakes were flying and the slopes were covered.

From one holiday to the next, ski slopes went from barren to bowled over by snow. The Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in mid-January was supposed to be one of the top weekends for resorts, but mild winter kept many slopes closed.

All that has changed for the President's Day holiday. Wintry weather -- and the customers -- have arrived. Most eastern U.S. resorts entered the weekend operating at full or near-full capacity.

A beginning snowboarder, Ferguson took her son, an avid skier, to the Tucker County resort for his 19th birthday. He returned in December from a stint with the military in Iraq.

She was only able to get a reservation at Canaan Valley after someone else canceled.

"I was thrilled just to see the snow stacked up on the sides of the road," Ferguson, of Kenova, said Saturday. "It's wonderful. It's not too wet. It's not icy. It's soft. You can cut right through it."

But has the spate of cold, snowy weather in recent weeks been enough to help resorts recoup from the warm start to winter?

"Right now we're on a very positive upswing," said Tom Horrocks, spokesman for Vermont's Killington resort, which had 198 of 200 trails open heading into the President's Day weekend.

Just before the Martin Luther King holiday, Killington had received only 48 inches of snow for the season but has gotten 82 since as of Saturday. The normal for an entire season there is 250 inches, including 80 in March.

If the weather stays the same, "this will turn out to be a good season, not a great season," Horrocks said. "However, another couple of big snowstorms could push the potential toward it being a great season."

A month earlier in Vermont, four resorts and 17 cross-country ski centers were temporarily closed and none of the 19 open resorts had more than half their trails open.

In West Virginia, 151 of the 158 slopes at the state's four main resorts were open for the weekend, compared with only 44 open slopes a month earlier.

The weather since mid-January has been beneficial to the West Virginia resorts on three fronts, said Joe Stevens, spokesman for the West Virginia Ski Areas Association.

Not only has there been more than 60 inches of natural snow, but more importantly the cold temperatures have allowed the resorts to make their own snow.

With all the machines working at full capacity, Stevens said, the four resorts are making about 10,000 tons of snow an hour.

Also, because the weather remains wintry in the market areas West Virginia draws tourists from -- cities in Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and the D.C. area -- it puts people in the mood to ski.

"Back in late December, early January, if it's 65 degrees in Charlotte (N.C.), they're not thinking about skiing as much as they are playing golf."

"But when they're experiencing cold weather too, that keeps winter recreation at the forefront of people's minds and they want to go out and play in it."