Skiing at Silver Creek

This past weekend, Sandy and I headed up to Snowshoe, WV for a ski weekend. Although this winter has been very unpredictable with a roller coaster ride of weather, we lucked out and had good skiing weather. Not so much for the drive up. It started lightly snowing almost immediately after we left the Raleigh area and was getting heavy and sticking by the time we crossed into Virginia, making the drive take a lot longer than normal. Particularly on some of the narrow mountain roads north of Lynchburg and through George Washington and Monongahela National Forests. What is normally a 5.5 hour drive turned into about a 7.5 hour drive, but we made it safely, the most important thing. After checking to our room at the Inn at the bottom of the mountain, we took the shuttle up to Silver Creek and picked up our rental gear, then headed back down and relaxed in the hot tub for a bit before getting to bed.  Saturday morning, it was still snowing and very cold - highs in the lower 20s with windchill below 0. We bundled up as much as possible and hit the slopes. Being a Saturday, the busiest day, we spent the day at Silver Creek, which has a lot less people than the main Snowshoe skiing area.

The slopes are also a little easier here, so it provided an opportunity to brush up on skiing before hitting more slopes. It was also a chance for me to try out my new GoPro camera for point-of-view video while skiing. Since it doesn't have a view screen on the camera, I wanted to practice a bunch and then check it in the evening on the computer. I really realized the importance of simplicity for such a camera. Even with big bulky ski gloves on, I had no trouble pressing the buttons on the camera and taking pictures and video. At around lunch time, we went to Misty's Sports Bar to get some lunch, probably a mistake. It was very crowded, loud, and the service was very poor. I had a Steak & Cheese sandwich that was pretty good, but my wife ordered the soup and salad. The soup was lukewarm at best, not what she was hoping for to warm up on a very chilly day. And the server failed to bring silverware for her salad. After almost 30 minutes of being ignored by the server, I finally just went up to the bar and grabbed some from behind the bar. After lunch we skied for a while longer, but by night time, it was getting very cold, so we decided to head back to the hotel and warm up in the hot tub. Talking to some of the other guests in the hot tub, we realized we weren't the only ones disappointed by the food at Silver Creek and they told us there were much better options in the Village.