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.

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.

Last Day of Skiing

Sunday, the weather had gotten a little more pleasant with temperatures in the 30s and sunny skies. And most importantly, the wind had really died down. After breakfast at the hotel, we took the shuttle up the mountain and starting skiing from the Village area.

The village is right in the middle of the Snowshoe Basin ski area and the criss-crossing trails make it easy to ski down to different lifts. We decided to start off heading north and took the Hessler Way, Log Slide, and and Greenway trails down to the Powerridge lift.

The lines for the lifts were definitely longer than at Silver Creek, but still not too bad - 10 minutes or so. We took this lift up the mountain and took the Gangway and Yew Pine trails back down to the lift. This was a nice run and so we did a couple of times before moving on to the next. When we were ready to move on, we took the lift one last time, and then skied down the Powderidge, Powder Monkey, and Whiffletree trails down to the Ballhooter lift. We took this lift up, which dropped us off near the Village where we had started, and then took the Upper and Lower Hootenanny trails down to the southern end of the basin area. The very end of this trail, where it meets up with Widowmaker, was quite steep and I was able to pick up some speed. We took the Soaring Eagle lift up to the Top of the World area and skied down the Upper Flume to the Lower Hootenanny trails back to the same lift.

Looking up, the Widowmaker didn't seem to bad, although Sandy had no intention of skiing it. On the ride back up the lift, I asked the guy riding the lift with us how difficult the Widowmaker was and he said "not bad, my 5-year old daughter skied it." So now, I had to do it. So Amanda skied the easier route while I took the Widowmaker, my first time on a black diamond. I waited until no one else was on the slope and headed down, slaloming to keep my speed down. At one point, I felt like I was going incredibly fast (34.5 mph according to the GPS) until another skier flew by me like I was standing still. But I survived and didn't fall - and have the GoPro video footage to prove it. After this, we took the lift back up and skied down the Upper Flume, Mid Flume, Lower Flume and Whiffletree to the Ballhooter lift and took this back up to the Village.

We had lunch at Sunset Cantina, which was a little pricey but the service and food were good. Definitely much better than eating at Silver Creek. Then we got back on the trails and skied for a while longer until the Snowshoe Basin Area was getting ready to close. We took a shuttle back to Silver Creek and skied there for a while, since that's the only section that has night skiing. It was getting a little icy and we were both tired so after a few more runs, we called it quits, returning our ski equipment and heading back down to the Inn for one more time in the hot tub. We checked out in the morning and made a much easier drive home. All the roads were cleared and we had no trouble making it in 5.5 hours.

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.

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.