We arrived on Friday along with colder temps and 3-4" of new snow. You could tell it had been loose/frozen granular the previous day, but the new powder did wonders for the skiing. I have to say it was excellent. Today (Sunday) was especially good, with mostly sunny skies and milder temps (about 35F on the hill). A Bluebird day.

We skied Silver Creek on Friday and Saturday, with no crowds and decent trails. Sunday was spent at the Western Territory (in my opinion, the only two trails over on the Snowshoe side worth skiing). The trails were in good shape and crowds were light there too. I'm not generally a Snowshoe fan, but Shays and Cupp are probably the best trails in the South when the conditions are good.

Summary: in the midst of a warm spell, this micro-winter weekend was very good at Snowshoe.

Craig

I was at the Shoe from the 2nd through the 6th which went from rain to fog/ice to powder. After the heavy downpour on Monday, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the base held up Tuesday and Wednesday with temps topping out in the 50s. Very few brown spots. It finally got cold again Wednesday night - making for icy conditions at the top (not much if anything was groomed) on Thursday. However Silver Creek was fully groomed Wednesday night and was quite nice for cruising on Thursday - no lines. Snow making on Thursday and Friday along with 2-4 inches of fresh made for some nice Powder on Friday. It was college week, and the resort was 70-90 percent full all week. The line at Ball Hooter was long each day from 12:00 on as expected - but there were no waits at Widowmaker or Cupp. Ballhooter really only took us 5 minutes to get through - we just worked our way over to the left lane around the crowd (who for some reason liked to hang out in the right lanes making the line look longer than it really was). On Friday (a big lodging turnover day) the crowd was very light and the snow was excellent.

I was there on Thurs. the 5th and boy was it miserable. Literally everything was ice in the morning. Ski patrol stopped everyone by the Western Express lift and told them not to go down Shay's or Cupp if they weren't expert. They were both icier than I have ever seen. They eventually closed both slopes because so many people were getting hurt on them. The lines at the Powder Monkey lift were far worse than that of the Ballhooter??? Go Figure??