The end of our snow season has arrived. We had a weekend retreat at Snowshoe again, thanks to our season passes. We had only one full day of skiing, but it was an unforgettable experience for me. The whole day was full of fun. The main reason was that, for the first time, I skied on the expert/black diamond slopes and felt comfortable doing it. It was unseasonably warm, 50° F, so it was also my first time skiing in the rain with thunder and lightning. Here is Dave on the Widowmaker slope. I can feel the rain looking at this picture. 🙂
This time, we were able to ski on many different trails. At Snowshoe it is fairly easy to explore the mountain by moving to different slopes, from greens, to blues and blacks. Here is the frozen lake at the end of the Ball Hooter slope. Ball Hooter is the only top to bottom Blue run, and basically parallels the Ball Hooter Lift all the way down.
Here is the Boathouse Restaurant at the base of Ball Hooter Lift. The Boathouse deck overlooks scenic Shavers Lake. The Boathouse is the perfect place to relax and recharge. It wasn’t crowded at the time, despite the weekend, so there were no lines at the lift.
Most runs start right at the village.
The Blue slopes aren’t as challenging as they are at Okemo, but they are really pretty with an awesome view of the mountains.
Here I am getting ready for the Black run. The Widowmaker run was nicely groomed and wide, but Camp 99 was not groomed at all and much steeper. The rain was getting harder.
We even completed a black diamond run on the Western Territory, all expert terrain. This section is usually the least crowded. To reach The Western Territory from the Top of the World area, we had to cross the street, literally. It is across the access road to Snowshoe. Also a shuttle bus transports skiers between Silver Creek and the Snowshoe/Western Territory areas.
Actually, Western Territory consists of just 2 runs: Cupp Run (black diamond) and Shays Revenge (double black diamond), which take advantage of Snowshoes total vertical drop. Both trails are worthy of their black-diamond rating. According to my husband, double blacks are not much steeper than black runs, but they often un-groomed, bumpy and have rough icy spots. We haven’t done a run on a double black slope yet. I guess, it will be a goal for next season. We were sitting on the lift hoping to take a second run, when the thunder and a lightning started to strike, followed by a downpour. So we had no choice but to head back to the condo because they close the lifts down for lightning.
The heavy rain clouds are hanging over the mountain.
We had a very good snow season this year with many trips of skiing and snowboarding. Overall, we made 7 trips this season:
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End of Snow Season at Snowshoe (this post)
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Seven Springs Mountain Resort (see this post)
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Wisp Mountain Resort (see this post)
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White Tail Mountain Resort (see this post)
We opened this snow season in December by mounting the skis and snowboard on the top of the car and driving to Seven Springs in Pennsylvania. Here are some pics:
A view of the mountain covered completely by manmade snow. It has some nice runs, but not very long.
Seven Springs has a beautiful resort area.
The scenery from our car window, while driving through Pennsylvania.
We visited Wisp Ski resort in Maryland right before Christmas. The resort itself is not as fancy as Seven Springs, but the mountain is more challenging.
We especially liked this lift. It has a conveyer which takes you to the lift chair.
We had a great time snowboarding at White Tail, Pa. The weather was perfect, but it was very crowded, especially on the beginner slopes, where we stuck with the boarding.
We really enjoyed our snow season, but now we are looking forward to some summer adventures and to the next snow season. We will definitely go back to Snowshoe!