Well I managed to get a buddy to join me last minute for Snowshoe. We puttered around Whitegrass on Friday morning/afternoon, then headed down to the Shoe on Friday night, stopping at Maggie's for a yummy/filling dinner in Elkins on the way.

Stayed at Silver Creek, allowed for very easy access to night skiing Friday evening. Conditions were fast and firm. The polished ice spots were easy enough to avoid though allowing from some great high speed turns. The far intermediate slope of Foxchase was devoid of people for the most part so the only thing I would hit if I lost control would be the trees. While riding the lift up on one of the runs I met Snowcone's daughter and her friend, a DCSki poster who I am forgetting the name of right now. He lives just around the corner from me and I apologize for spacing his name.

It started snowing Friday night and snowed the entire time we were there.

Saturday I was at Cupp when they dropped the ropes. There were a herd of folks. By the time I got back in line for a second lap, Cupp was pretty much chopped up. I headed over to the Basin to check things out and it was already a zoo by 9:45. Ballhooter lift was starting to back up, but they had not opened all the lanes of the ropes. The line looked long, but it moved fast. I kept working my way over to Widowmaker to find it full of sliding missles with varying amounts of control, cruising down dust on crust. The edges had some snow kicked over to it but the fresh from the sky was nowhere to be seen.

By noon I managed to get back over to Shay's for a couple of runs, (met RMCVA) then bailed back to Silver Creek. The rumors are true..that place is empty. I hit Flying Eagle and Bear for the next few hours, never getting bored. I met up with a nice Patroller named Zig (short for Zeigler) and learned a few things about the place.

Saturday night was dinner at the Foxfire. Wait time for a table was 1.5 hours so we had time to kill. Eventually found ourselves inside the shop 4848' and met Scott, their bootfitter. The bootfitting at 4848 is new and Scott is doing his best to spread the word. We watched him work for awhile, asking all sorts of questions how the machine worked. He was more than accomodating and patient. My buddy dropped off boots to him to get stretched by a cm front to back.

Sunday I just stayed at Silver Creek. I was there when the ropes dropped and had fresh lines for hours. People were there but nowhere close to the density of the basin. For the first few runs on Flying Eagle I could just evaluate my ski tracks from the lift on the way back up (I'm skidding my back ski a bit, but getting better) I only saw two other telemarkers at Snowshoe the whole weekend.

There is a small glade area cleared between Flying Eagle and Bear. It's still a bit tight and depends on natural cover, but Sunday I was able to drop through there 4 runs before anyone else ventured in. The pow in the trees was about boot top deep, I only tapped a rock here and there. No hard shots to p-tex.

On my way back towards the lodge from Flying Eagle I noticed a gaggle of Patrollers sort of lingering around the tree line looking a little weird. I hung back for a moment and watched from a distance..sure enough, they ducked into a tree stash. I made the loop and came back around in a few minutes to follow their tracks. Nice little stash, needed just a bit more cover, but still fun. Things were over my head and I was alone so I traveled slow and easy. I could see the main trail through the trees and was headed for the out door when I took my last spill, popped out of my binding. I was looking down, fiddling with my cables when I felt four pairs of eyes staring at me. I looked up and sure enough, all four patrollers were standing out on the main trail. They saw me through the trees and made it a point to ask if I was alone or not. I said I was, they told me not to ski the trees alone. I told them no problem, I was headed out anyways. They were all very cool about it, half grinning at me. As soon as I cleared from their stash, they skied off like they were on fire, disappearing around the bend. I figure they wanted back into their goods before I could plunder any more. Can't blame them.

My buddy and I opted to stay another night since the it was snowing so much. Monday I was at Cupp again early and the wind had kept things pretty scoured. Back across the Basin I wandered. Far less people, better skiing. Widowmaker was the bees knees though. Measurable fresh snow all across the run with few enough people to make speed a viable option. It was great. I could have skied there all day if I didn't need to get back home that night.

All in all it was a great weekend. I skied my pants off, legs are still twitching two days after. Sure it wasn't the steep and deep of Alta, but I figure it may have been one of the better weekends of the year for there. My only critisim is that I wish 'Shoe didn't feel obligated to groom every bit of that fresh powder into their base. They reported 19 inches fell over the weekend but sure didn't seem like that much on the main trails. Oh well. Beats the heck out of surfing the couch.

Steve

Good write up. My dad was skiing Silver Creek on Saturday and said at one point he figured it was snowing about 1/4 inch per chair ride.

Very nice. Glad to know there's some glades and lax patrollers at Silver Creek. The two things I like most about Silver Creek are how the snow stays very soft on the runs (due to lack of crowds) and the views. When there's fresh snow, the view into the Shavers Fork backcountry looks like Alaska. That and the day I skied SS/SC last year the high was 13. By three in the afternoon, the sun was behind the mountain for the most part and I'm pretty sure temps had worked their way back into the single digits. Being cold and staring out across that wide, forested valley sure made you feel like you were much, much further north than WV!

Heh Buddy, glad to see you went for it! Looks like you didn't fill your Book ...lost a little but went for it anyway! ...A + personality! Luv the spirit!

I remember thinking a couple years back that they oughta make the treed area between flying eagle and bear a glade...glad to hear that some work has been done in this direction

I was there too, with a group of family, and I bet my brother in law and I were lapping Cupp, Shays, Bear Claw, and Flying Eagle the same time you were. Sounds like there were quite a few DC-skiers there.

We didn't get on Cupp/Shays until 9:30 Saturday, but we were in place for rope-drop on Sunday morning with about 30 other people, and it was like a skier-cross event. Kind of fun. I was first down Shays most of the way, but there was not a whole lot of fresh snow due to the wind and recent grooming. I was half thinking we should have gone over to Silver Creek first thing. I enjoyed skiing the two blacks there on Saturday afternoon. That place is a gem. I enjoy the glades too, when the snow is decent.

Where was that powder stash? We found one off Knife Blade. It shoots down and through the woods kind of steeply, and comes out at the top of the terrain park. It was kind of tricky skiing in there, had to jump at least one downed tree. Can't say it was something I would do a lot! (though practice would help).

Thanks for a great weekend report, it was an enjoyable read! Two things strike me about the Shoe. 1) The place is starting to over-build for their ski slope and lift capacity. After a another several hundred condos and/or row-houses are built, the place will be jammed into grid-lock most of the time. 2) The Shoe exaggerates their snowfall amounts (granted, a number of ski areas tend to do this). More times than not, when I've driven from 7-S to the Shoe believing that the Shoe had more natural snow, I couldn't see much difference between the natural base at the Shoe vs 7-S. Granted, the Shoe probably receives more natural snowfall per year than 7-S, but I'm highly skeptical about the Shoe's claimed average annual snowfall.

You are the alltimate pesimist Mr. MM..You trip me out! You are like a DEMOCRAT!....are you?: