The words “spring break” typically conjure images of sand, sunshine and palm trees in the minds of many college students, but Snowshoe Mountain Resort seeks to challenge that idea with Ballhooter Festival Thursday through Sunday.

“You’ve got all summer for that, right? Plenty of time to go to the beach,” Shawn Cassell, PR specialist at Snowshoe Mountain Resort said. “The months where you can go enjoy awesome skiing conditions are a lot shorter and it’s just different.”

American Authors will headline the event with a free outdoor concert Saturday, with Lissie, Davisson Brothers Band and Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band also performing.

Cassell said the festival’s namesake, as well as many of the resort’s trails and ski lifts, lies in the logging industry that occupied the area before Snowshoe.

“Ballhooter is apparently what old lumberjacks back in the day used to call the guy who would stand at the top of a really steep slope and throw the logs down the mountain,” Cassell said. “He’s supposed to yell to give a heads up that the log is coming down the mountain. He is a ballhooter.”

Cassell said Snowshoe tailors the activities to appeal to a college-aged audience without completely overhauling the mountain’s entire operation.

“On a different weekend we might have more kids-oriented stuff going on,” Cassell said. “We really expand our activities through Ballhooter, there’s just a lot more going on. A lot more young-adult oriented stuff to do.”

The National Weather Service states weekend temperatures at Snowshoe Mountain are expected to reach highs in the mid 50s and lows in the upper 40s throughout the weekend, with a chance of showers and cloud cover.

“It seems like we’ll have some nice warm spring weather,” Cassell said. “I know that doesn’t go hand-in-hand with skiing, but at as long as you’ve got the snow, a sunny day out on the slopes can still be a lot of fun.”

Megan osborne can be contacted at [email protected].