POWDER SKIING AT SNOWSHOE
by Paul Maraschiello

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I headed to Snowshoe in West Virginia for a little skiing in early December. They invited a bunch of the press to come up and it had the makings of a really good time. When I arrived, I checked in at the top of the mountain and found that they had booked me into Expedition Station which is a ski-in ski-out facility in the hart of the Village on the top of the mountain. My room was a Junior Studio an it was very comfortable for one person. For reservations call (877) 441-4FUN.

Ski Area Stats
Snowshoe gets 180 inches average annual snowfall. They have a 4,848 foot summit elevation with a 1,500 feet vertical drop. The longest run is 1.5 miles and they have 100% snowmaking on their 60 slopes and trails (41% easier, 36% more difficult, 23% most difficult), and 12 slopes are open for night skiing. Their 14 lifts include 3 high speed detachable quads, 2 handle tows and 2 Magic Carpets.

Skiing
The next morning, the ski area hosted our media group to a really nice breakfast at the Junction Restaurant. I feasted on stake and eggs and then headed to the slopes for my first day of skiing this season. I warmed up on an Intermediate run and then rode up the Ball Hooter high-speed quad. Ball Hooter is an advanced Intermediate trail with a steep section on top that was in good shape that runs under the chair. I hopped off the chair and made a couple of runs down this slope. After I warmed up, I took a couple of runs down Grabhammer.

They were having a Demo Day, so I went over to the Volkl tent and picked out a pair of AC-40 Carbon mid-fat skis to test. I made a couple of runs on these skis and they performed very well. They had the new Marker wide bindings and these bindings seemed to work just fine. The AC40 has a layer of carbon fiber for additional liveliness, an Extended Sensorwood core, Extended Double Grip, and the Motion iPT system. According to Volkl, the AC40 Carbon is probably the best-performing mid-fat system available in the market today. I liked these skis and found that their performance was similar to my Volkl 24 7 Pros.

I had a cup of hot chocolate at the Boathouse restaurant at the base of the Ball Hooter lift, overlooking the lake. I met some friendly Season Pass holders in the restaurant who were from Richmond, Virginia and had a pleasant time talking to them while I warmed up. I spent the rest of the day skiing the trails serviced by the Ball Hooter high-speed quad. As it was my first day on the snow for this season, I called it quits early and was off the slopes by 2 PM.

After relaxing for a while in my room, I headed to the Foxfire Grille for happy hour. As luck would have it, I ran into the folks that I had met earlier at the Boathouse and had a couple of drinks with them. Afterwards, I had dinner at the Junction with the rest of the guests from the press. The buffalo steak for dinner I had was tasty as was the shrimp cocktail. I headed back to my room and called it an early night. I was looking forward to getting first tacks in the morning with the ski area "big shots" before the trails were opened to the general public.

Powder
When I woke up at 7:30 AM, it was snowing very hard and the wind was howling. Now, I don't mind skiing when the snow is coming down hard, but when the snow is traveling horizontally at high speed, that's, another story. I turned on the TV and checked out the weather forecast and decided that the wind might slow down later in the morning, so I brewed myself a cup of the complementary coffee Snowshoe provides in every room and watched Glenn Plake on the ski channel until the snow wasn't blowing so hard. By 9:00 AM, the wind had subsided, so I headed to the ski locker, picked up my skis and walked out the door. As Snowshoe is an up-side-down mountain, when I walked out the door, I was on the top of the mountain.

After stepping into my skis, I headed down the slope and was delighted to find that all the snow that I saw blowing sideways from my window turned out to be about a foot of POWDER! Once I got off the top of the mountain, the wind wasn't so bad and all that powder made the skiing pretty good. By the end of my first run, I was lamenting that fact that I didn't get out earlier for "first tracks" but I found out later that most of the visiting press also chickened out and there was only about six people from the media who enjoyed skiing the powder before the trails were opened. I ran into one of the guys that made it to "first tracks" and had to listen to him brag about how good the powder was that morning before it got all tracked up by the paying clientele.

Ok, I screwed up and missed the best of a great powder day. I had planned on covering the Big Air areal events that Sunday but they were canceled due to the wind, so I just skied all the trails off the main mountain that day. I had some hot chile for lunch and made a couple more runs after lunch and then called it a day. I was a little worried about the roads but found that they were in nice shape once you got off the mountain.

Over the years, I have become a big fan of Snowshoe. It is easily the best ski area in the Mid-Atlantic states. Whenever I have skied there, I have found the people to be friendly and the snow coverage to be good. They ski into April at Snowshoe, so if you live in the Washington D.C. area or further South or even up in Ohio, Snowshoe is the best ski area within an easy drive. Give it a try and tell them the Ski Bum News sent you. You'll have a great time.

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