Snowshoe Weekend

We met Brett and Rachel, Ashley and Brant up at Snowshoe to go skiing in early March. I had never been, but the boys grew up in West Virginia, so they had all been a number of times. Snowshoe was much nicer than I had expected. I guess I have heard from some experienced skiiers that there's not much to offer on the east coast compared with other areas of the country. Although just a couple of days was all it took for me to be impressed. We got there on Friday night, hung out, went skiing all day Saturday, and then headed back home on Sunday morning. It's about a 4 1/2 hour drive from Blacksburg. Brett has a friend who has a little condo right off the slopes that we were able to stay at for the weekend.

All three of the four brothers love snowboarding and were ready to hit the slopes when we got there. I have been skiing and snowboarding in the past, but hadn't been for years. My family was more of a beach-vacation family than a mountain-skiing-vacation family. Rachel had also been skiing before, but it had been awhile. It was Ashley's first time on a pair of skis. We all had a lot of fun. After a couple runs, it came back to me. Maybe it's one of those things like riding a bike?

They have a bunch of nice green (beginner) trails, and even a separate "Western Territory" for the advanced. Bryce was actually hoping to make it over there, but we only spent one day skiing. I think it was around 4pm when the Snowshoe skiing area closed and the Silver Creek area opened for night skiing. Brett, Bryce and I went over there for about an hour until we were cold and hungry for a delicious dinner of BBQ beef brisket! (one of our faves)

There was a ton of snow up there; they said that they got over 9 feet of snow this past winter!

It wasn't too crowded, which was nice so we didn't have to wait in huge lines at the chair lifts. I loved the area, and it was cool that the little town was at the top of the mountain instead of the bottom.





Bryce kept saying, "Wow, they have built this place up so much! You wouldn't believe what it looked like when we used to come here." So, when we got back, I was curious. Snowshoe Mountain opened to skiing on December 13, 1974. The area had been logged from about 1905 to 1960, after which it was virtually barren and abandoned. A dentist from North Carolina came along and started building a ski resort. Financial problems hit, although it's popularity continued to grow. Finally in 1995, Intrawest, a Canadian ski-resort operator which had become well known for expanding mountain resorts through village-style commercial and condominium real estate development, bought Snowshoe. Soon, it became a cute, bustling little ski town.

(Photo and info from Wikipedia)