During that great President's weekend in the Valley my wife and I decided to take the kids out for dinner after a great day of skiing. While we were waiting for our food I was flipping through two WV tourism magazines and noticed some "strange" advertisements for Timberline. I say "strange" but you could probably insert the word false just as easily-but I'll let you be the judge of that.

In one magazine called the "Mountain Highlands Traveler" Timberline had a two page spread that included a section called "New This Season at Timberline" and some of the claims where as follows:

-Increased Snowmaking to 100 percent
-Timberline's second terrain park

I don't believe there is snowmaking available on upper thunderdraft or silverstreak and I've still yet to see a second terrain park or for the matter to see any snowblowing capability on bear claw. And I know when they say 100 percent they are talking about capability but they still only have about 65-70 percent of the mountian open. Why are they trying to add new trails if they can't even open all they have?

Then in another publication I think,not sure, called Tucker County Tourism Timberline had an add that said:

-come ride Timberline's 250 foot half pipe and explained it is a favorite of the locals (is this a joke???)
-come during the summer and mountainbike on timberline's 100 of miles of mountain bike trails (100's of miles??)

All through late december and January I listened to radio adds that said come and play in the terrain park at Timberline- I don't know for sure when exactly it was built but I know it wasn't until atleast February.

I had a good time at Timberline this past weekend, but come on this advertising is ridiculous. When I hear all this hoopla about a new trail and see it on the trail maps I have a hard time believing they will actually do it. They've had the Bear Claw terrain park on the trail map and advertised for the last three seasons, yet I've never seen a single rail or jump there.

I'll believe they are building a new trail when I ski it and even then I'll have to ski it twice to make sure.

Fred,
I know what you mean. I didn't take notice to see if it's still there but for years, they've had a huge banner on the side of the lodge with the Skiing Capital of the Mid-Atlantic or something like that. Come on, that's quite a far fetch from the truth. It's an interesting resort that I enjoy coming to. Partly due to the atmosphere that it has but it's not any skiing capital It's a small-time, small budget ski area. They really need to be careful about the hype they spread before getting called on false-advertising. They should advertise themsleves for what they are, a rustic, skiers experience without all of the destination resort frills.

-Warren-