Skiing at Silver Creek

In the morning, we had a quick breakfast and then started making our way to Snowshoe. We stopped at the Ski Barn to pick up our rental skis and then stopped by the Inn at the base of the mountain. It was too early to check in to our room, but we got our lift tickets here. We left our car in the parking lot and took the shuttle up to the Silver Creek area. Steve and the others were staying at a condo at Top of the World and we were going to try to meet them on the slopes. All bundled up in cold-weather gear for skiing, however, everybody looks about the same, so I expected that finding our friends would be difficult. Sandy and I started on the easiest Skill Builder and Cubb Run trails. After a couple of runs to warm up, we happened to run into our friends and started skiing all together. We skied a few more times on the Greenhorn trail and then headed to the Silver Creek lodge for lunch. After lunch, we stayed in the Silver Creek area, but moved onto the slightly more difficult blue Cascade and Fox Chase Trails. Using my GPS, I clocked my maximum speed as hitting 35 miles per hour. As the afternoon progressed, we split up and Sandy and I headed down to the Inn on the 4 o’clock shuttle down the mountain. We checked into our room, then headed back up the mountain for a little night skiing. This evening, we had a really nice shuttle driver and enjoyed talking with him. He had worked as a driver for Snowshoe for some thirty years and just loved driving school buses. He described them as tanks that were so much better under bad weather conditions than other buses and vehicles. I don’t think I’ll ever look at school buses the same! Up at the top, we never found the rest of our friends; I don’t think they ended up doing any night skiing, but it was a great time. Given the weather forecast, Sunday night was our best opportunity for night skiing as the temperatures would be about 20 degrees warmer than the following night. Also, with the Super Bowl going on, we pretty much had the slopes to ourselves. Sandy and I skied for an hour or so and then took the 7 o’clock shuttle back down. By this time, we were sufficiently chilled and wanted to thaw out in the hot tub. Again, likely due to the Super Bowl, we had the whole pool area to ourselves and greatly enjoyed warming up in the hot tub.