President's weekend. It was the annual Troop 1523 ski trip. Often this is the first ski experience for the boys, or their only one of the season. Enthusiasm always runs high. We were booked into the Windwood resort bunkhouse and Canaan Valley ski area with about 30 boys and 6 adults. I am the (ahem) elder of the group. My son is Eagle class of 1992; he is 31 yrs. old and lives and works in Chicago. I have organized and run at least 10 troop ski trips over the years and am now absolutely delighted that someone else organizes, collects the money, worries the details, etc. I just show up and try to help here and there. I'm a skier and adventure lover, not an organizer. It is a nice bonus to have enough adults to not have to carry any scouts with their endless supplies of Pringles and M&Ms finding their way into car cushions, the noise, and of course the great constant of scout trips - farts and fart jokes.

The Potomac Highlands of WV, like all of the east, have experienced an up and down winter. Last week was a serious up with temperatures in the 60s that melted almost all the natural snow except for north facing slopes above 4000 ft. Ski resorts, with snowmaking were OK of course. Without snowmaking there would be no skiing in the mid Atlantic states this season.

The high country of WV is in its own climate zone. Amazingly it snowed all day on Sat. Nobody predicted it, not even the National Weather Service. Perhaps 4" fell on top of a rock hard base. A stiff wind blew a lot of it away but there was just enough to allow good skiing all day. On Sun. morning we awoke to -15 deg. temperature with sun and dead calm. The temperature had fallen about 80 degrees in 36 hrs., give or take a few hrs. or degrees. It was impressive. By 9 it had warmed to -1 and by 1 PM it was about 25, delightful for skiing. On Sun. night it snowed another 2" or so.

Canaan Valley gives easier access to good 'sidecountry', i.e. lift accessed backcountry, than any place I know and I ducked through the rabbit hole in the woods to ski a few runs of powder on both Sun. and Mon.

Everybody had a great time. We returned with exactly as many scouts as we started with, nobody got hurt and nobody threw up. We're looking forward to next year's trip.

Sounds like fun. My son makes the big leap from webelo to scout this week. I glad to hear his fart jokes and snowboarding will be put to good use!

Hum...!? I guess I should have stop making farts and fart jokes 34 years ago?

Ha .. yes I've spent a lot of time with scouts. Curious as to why CV instead of Timberline. Seems like Timberline has made a staple of the whole scout thing.
By the way http://www.fart-joke.com has loads of material for those wishing they could be there too. The element 8 of the resposibility code is not to fart where others can ski/board in unaware.

Denis:

I think it was pretty amazing how much snow Chip caught with his fences after that Saturday snowfall. I went down to Freeland Rd for some birding late on Monday after skiing T-line, and was amazed to see lots of skiers on the farm. I also got some nice views of a female American Kestrel hunting in the Wildlife Refuge--an uncommon winter bird in the Canaan Valley.

We went to Timberline for years. For the past 2 yrs. the boys and the troop leadership have voted for Canaan. They like the fact that it is harder for the novice to get in over their head at CV and there is enough room in the cafeteria to stake out a table or two for the kids to come in, warm up, and have a snack. We leave a couple adults in the area all day. TL has more challenging terrain but, from my point of view, CV has easier backcountry access. I noticed that CV did not blow any snow at all for the entire weekend. The food at CV is even worse than TL, which I didn't think was possible. On Mon. the boys went home at ~ 1 PM and I went over to Whitegrass cafe to see friends and get a real lunch after 2.5 days of dismal food. Honey line salmon, basmati rice and saled - $5.95. It was super. Washed it down with a couple of Mountain State stout and one of Laurie's oatmeal raisin cookies. I took a 45 min. nap in McD's parking lot in Moorefield and drove the rest of the way home refreshed.

I have eaten at CV only once, but I remember it being MUCH better than T-line. I also remember a much nicer lodge and higher prices. Am I dreaming?

sounds like a good trip.

I think you guys have the wrong idea about ski food. baseline is a PBJ sandwich and oatmeal cookies from the backpack. Anything above that is high end. my god, tline has hamburgers, fish tacos, and, best of all, cold beer. you want more?

our scout group claimed the tables on the left side of the top floor and a few adults stayed there: no problem. the real draw for us is tline's snow is reliable to plan a year ahead and the boys can all ski salamander from the top. the slow lifts just mean they won't hurt themselves as fast.

I was hoping to also get over to canaan but ran out of time and mostly transportation. I might drive myself next year.