Skiing at Snowshoe

Monday morning, we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel. In years past, the breakfast at the Inn was great. They had eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes and a variety of hot food, along with muffins, bagels, cereal and various cold items. Breakfast was served in the big restaurant area. To our disappointment, the breakfast at the Inn had been significantly downgraded since our last visit. They had biscuits and gravy as the only hot item, a couple muffins and cereal, and coffee and juice. Moreover, they moved the breakfast to a really small room so we had to eat standing up. And we weren’t the only people disappointed. Later in the day talking to Steve and Luis, they both expressed excitement about staying at the Inn in a couple weeks for the great breakfast. I hated to disappoint them, but figured they’d want to know in advance. We also talked to some people in the hot tub this evening who were upset about the breakfast change. Oh well, we had come for the skiing, not the food. After breakfast, we got our gear together and took the shuttle up the mountain. Today, we got off at the Village to ski the main area of Snowshoe. Sandy and I again started off on the easier green trails skiing down Heisler Way to Log Slide and Greenway. We took the Powderidge lift up the mountain and found our friends right at the top. I wasn’t sure if we’d ever find them as this area is a bit bigger than Silver Creek, so we were surprised to find them right away. We stuck mostly to green trails initially, eventually progressing up to the blues. I really enjoy skiing this area as its possible to criss-cross the mountain with different trails and lifts. The short but steep Moonshine Trail was a bit challenging and most people fell on this one. I managed to stay upright, though not so gracefully. As lunch time approached, we made our way south, eventually taking the Upper and Lower Hootenanny Trails to the Soaring Eagle lift up to Top of the World. Sandy and I got lunch to-go from Hoots and brought it up to the condo to have lunch with everybody. Then we headed back out to hit the slopes some more. Steve is a good skier and enjoyed showing off - at one point, we was skiing in circles going down the hill. It had been snowing pretty good all morning, but after lunch, the snow was getting harder. Additionally, it was very cold and extremely windy, especially at the top of the mountain. Coming up on the ski lifts, I thought we were going to be blown out a couple times. At one point, the wind was so strong that it literally blew me uphill! The strong winds blowing snow around made visibility very poor and the loud winds made it hard to talk without screaming. Sandy and I ended up losing the others after a couple of runs and we ended up doing a few more runs on our own, then decided to call it quits around 4. We took the shuttle back down the mountain and once out of our ski clothes, hit the hot tub to warm up. Brandi’s Restaurant at the Inn was closed so we walked across the street to the Route 66 restaurant and got some dinner to take back to the hotel.