I'm almost afraid to post this with all the Snowshoe bashing going on here lately:

Drove up Saturday night to ski Sunday and Monday. I talked with a few folks who said it had rained all day Saturday. It snowed that night, but only about 4 inches. Nothing was groomed in the morning, so it was classic "Dust on crust", big time. I can't say that I had a lot of fun Sunday - crowds were light, but snow was WAY less than ideal. I decided to roll the dice and stay Sunday night and try again Monday, as taking a day off work is difficult.

Man, what a difference an overnight can make! The snow report stated that they had received 7" of new snow Sunday night, and said the surface was groomed powder. But they must have groomed early in the evening, because when I hit Silver Creek, I was treated to about 6-8 inches of fresh powder on top of a nice groomed surface. I know that that isn't a lot of powder, but it was absolutely AWESOME arching some huge turns down Cascade, Fox Chase, and Flying Eagle going full speed! On the rare occasion when a hard turn dug in deep enough to get below the fresh snow,I was treated to cordoury (Sp?), so the turn just kept going.

For about 90 minutes, the place was virtually deserted. I made laps on Cascade, and laughed out loud numerous times. There were two young kids snowboarding on the run, and they would hollar at me from the chairlift as I cruised down, and I'd do the same for them when I went up. As the day went on, it got a bit more crowded than I was used to on a weekday (waited in lift line behind 12 people once, and had to share a run with someone else about 1/3 the way down already ). The surface eventually turned to skiier packed pwoder, but the temp.'s never got above freezing, so it was a sweet day!

I have seen a lot of folks bashing Snowshoe in the message forum. As a homeowner there, I have some of the same concerns that you do, and share them regularly with the management. I figure that rather than sit and gripe about it, I'll take my message straight to the source. I do a lot of what other folks do to increase my level of fun - avoid holidays, take weekdays off, hit the main mountain and Western Territory early, and spend most of my time at Silver Creek (Shhhh!). I don't know if it will make a difference, but at least I'm trying. But I for one, can tell you, that Old Man Winter is alive and well at Snowshoe!