Skiing at Snowshoe

Saturday, we woke up early and headed back to Silver Creek for our first day of skiing. We are both beginner-level skiers, so we stuck to the Green Circle runs. But even these easier runs, were a lot of fun. The runs were long and there were very short waits for the lifts. In the past, we skied in North Carolina, but it was so warm this winter, we had decided to come up further north. That was a great decision. The skiing is much better in West Virginia. We had real snow, longer ski runs, much greater area and many more runs, and the slopes were much less congested.

The crowd picked up a bit in the evening, since Silver Creek is the only area with night skiing, but nonetheless, it was much less crowded that what we're used to.

Waterfall on the Way to Snowshoe

Sandy and I went up to Snowshoe, WV for a long weekend of skiing and winter fun. We left Friday morning and drove up. On the way, we stopped to see Falling Spring Falls, just north of Covington, VA on US-220. This 100-foot waterfall is right off the highway; just pull over to see the falls and take pictures.

After a short stop, we continued on our way and made it to Snowshoe. We checked in at the Inn, picked up our ski rentals, and then took the shuttle up to Silver Creek and did two hours of snow tubing at the Coca-Cola Tubing Park. Perfect weather for it - snow!

Reedy Creek Park and Crowders Mountain

Today we knocked off two (well 1.5 technically) more of the 100 Classic Hikes in NC. Our first stop was in Charlotte at Reedy Creek Park & Nature Preserve, one half of hike number 29. It rained most of the way down, but was just drizzling for our hike. We parked at the Nature Center and hiked along the Umbrella Tree Trail.

We missed the turn off and completed the loop back to the nature center and tried again. This time, we took the turn onto the South Fork Trail and headed a ways before crossing a bridge and turning right on the Sierra Loop Trail. We followed this trail around to the Sassafras Trail and headed to the picnic shelters for a quick lunch.

Then we headed down the path between the Kingfisher and Dragonfly Ponds to the Dragonfly Pond Trail back to the Nature Center. Then off to our next destination.  Our next stop was Crowders Mountain State Park to hike the Crowders and Rocktop Trails (Hike # 27). It started raining heavily on the drive from Charlotte, but by the time, we got to the park, though, the rain had lightened. King's Pinnacle was visible although partially covered by clouds. We parked at the Visitor Center, donned our rain gear and headed down the Crowders/Pinnacle Trail. At the split, we turned right to stay on Crowders Trail, down a ways to the street crossing at Sparrow Springs Road. Across the road we took the left trail to continue on Crowders Trail, which follows along the base of the mountain.

At the end, we turned right onto Backside Trail and started making our ascent up the mountain, first up a gravel road then many stairs (336 to be exact). By the time we made it to the top, the rain had died down and we had a nice view over the surrounding landscape - way too cloudy to see the Charlotte skyline, but we were above the clouds and could see bits and pieces of the surrounding land through the breaking clouds.

We continued to the summit with the radio tower then took Rocktop Trail heading back.

There were many interesting rock formations along the trail, including some that made for a challenging climb, especially being wet.

At the end of the trail, there was a steep descent back to the road and across back to the Visitor Center.