I rode the lift with a guy on Friday who pointed out two previously cut trails between Cupp Run and Shays. These were cleared by previous management (pre Intrawest) but never finished and have since grown in. As you ride up the Western Territory chair, there is a point above the Cupp runout where the trees are much younger and shorter (ie, saplings) compared to the rest of the forest. You can look to the left and right of the chair and see the path of the trails. These would have been great drops with a fairly steep pitch. I believe they would have started up on the traverse section of lower Shays (which did not exist at the time) before the current steep section.

You can see the trails in satellite imagery, and I sketched up some details here:

http://hunter.pairsite.com/craig/ss-trails.jpg

I highlighted the trails in the ellipse, and also drew in the rough path of the current Shay's revenge in blue.

It would be awesome if SS could clear those trails and open them -- they surely could use more terrain over on the Western territory. These would make great bump runs. The trails have a Northwest exposure.

Anybody else have info / memories / recollections about these lost trails?

On a side note, lower Shays has not been opened yet this year, and I doubt they will try to open it at this point. There is zero snowmaking activity over there. This is the first time I ever remember that section not being opened by mid February.

Wow... that's an interesting find... I know that they had tried to open two new trails paralelling Cupp to the North, but apparently there were some ecosystem issues and protected species that put a kabash on that. Even with both Shays and Cupp together, that detachable quad is the least used in the resort.

As far as Lower Shays, I am saddened that they haven't tried to make a go of it. I was just at Snö and they have all three double blacks open and in great condition. White Lightning is comparable to Lower Shays, so I can't understand the reason for its abandonment...

I wonder if there's a technical reason Shays is not being opened -- for instance, an issue with the snowmaking system over there. They had no issues making a ton of snow on the basin side this weekend, so they clearly have not ramped back on snowmaking in general. I've even seen them make snow in March, as needed to keep key trails going.

Here's another shot of the lost trails. Cupp in green, Shays in blue, the two lost trails in red:

http://hunter.pairsite.com/craig/ss-2.jpg

As for the trails on the skiers left of Lower Cupp. The logging was done in the early/mid 80's with the idea of opening a couple of additional runs on that side. Problem being, from what I was told by a long term "shoer" was the snowmaking infrastructure, the intersecting of lower Cupp as a run out and the usual lack of $$$$. Remember, this was around the time that they began having $$ issues. It never went any further, not even with the cut timber. It was about the same time period that Hawthorne was closed.

The shame of it is that if they upgraded the snow making in this area and added these two (as well as Hawthorne) a lot of us Shoe Bashers wouldn't have much to complain about!

Interesting...I've long held that some terrain in that area would be a great addition to the Western Territory and bump up both the variety of terrain over there as well as increase the utilization of the WT lift.

The Cupp run out would have to widen a bit or some sort of traffic management put in place that slows down the people coming down from Shay's and moves the Cupp skiiers to skiier's right.

I saw schemes like that in place at Whistler this year so that should be doable.

I remember those trails from the early 80's. One of them was supposed to be called Mephisto. I'm sure they were skied by the locals but they were never opened. RT

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Hmm, I'd count the original contours of Cupp Run as a 'lost' trail.

Finally! Tim's off the lurk list. Welcome to the insanity we call the forum board.

Please elaborate!

I think LHC is talking about how Cupp Run use to be an Expert trail. Back in the 80's & early 90's Upper Cupp would have small bunps and lower Cupp would have huge VW size bumps. Ski Patrol would sit at the midstation and would yank nonexperts and make them ride the lift back up. Now when I hear someone say that Cupp Run was bumped up, I just laugh. There hasn't been any real bumps on Cupp since before the Japanese owned the place. Now Cupp is just a intermediate trail.

That is true, they do groom the heck out of Cupp nowadays. Upper Shays too. They even groomed Knotbumper last weekend.

As per Lower Shays abandonment I think the Shoe has cut back on their snowmaking drastically and look at skier/traffic as the highest priority instead of overall skier satisfaction. The only reason that Sawmill gets snowmaking now is to help sell the real estate located right above it.

It wasn't too long ago that they'd blow snow all-day, any-day until they had built a base of at least 50". Opening the half-pipe? No problem. Just blow snow from a few machines 24-7 for a week and then cut the thing. Now, it will probably be two years straight w/out them opening the half-pipe.

BTW, I love the Shoe and cant' wait to get up there again in a couple weeks (please cold weather, snow, and no rain). I just think they're really pushing the envelope and coming dangerously close to creating a craptacular on-snow experience.

That's exactly what I mean but is seems to me that there has been some trail widening making the lower steep section seem much easier to negotiate. Has there been some earth moving also, some re-contouring for snow making and grooming?

Another "lost" trail from the mid-80's on the Cupp side was a small intermediate trail called Cupp Cake. I recall seeing it on a few trail maps from that period. Most of it ran underneath and acrosss the liftline. You can still make out parts of it from the lift, particularly just before you hit Upper Shay's.

In the early 90s, I recall that anyone trying to ski in this area would likely end up getting their lift tickets pulled. Anyone else?

Yeah. cup cake was originally an access road for lift maintainence that was skiable with natural snow. Never saw it officially open. Did anybody here ever go bandit under the old ballhooter lift (triple) back in the day? We used to get one, maybe two good lines in there before the DC natzis would get us. Friends used to huck the "old man ballhooter" cliff on a big powder day. Too bad they destroyed that feature to put in the quad.

It is fascinating!

You can still ski cupcake much of the year, and drop off into the woods. Memphisto #2 is just lower shays.

That is the 1980 map. In the 1990 map, both cupcake and memphisto have been erased. Powder ridge has been built but only has a small connector slope over to monkey.

I'd like to hear from anyone who might know about this sighting: On any aerial view or even from the grabhammer lift, you can clearly see a major cut from powder monkey straight down the fall line to the end of choker and then back over to powder ridge. It looks like a pretty nice slope. However they have planted trees across the entrance so it is hard to find. Anyone know anything about that ?

I'm glad you resurrected this thread, it's very cool to see how thins have changed. I see that cuppcake is still there, it must just be that access road still. Too bad there isn't a little more on the Western Territory. I have an interesting perspective on Cupp, being a skier there 20 years ago I remember the huge VW size moguls on portions of Cupp being very intimidating. I switched to snowboarding, and completely avoided Cupp for about 15 years because I knew I couldn't handle the moguls there. I went back to skiing recently, and was amazed how much easier Cupp was without those bumps. I agree that the slope seems wider and also a little less steep, but maybe that perception is just a result of having to deal with those moguls.

I can't figure out which area you're talking about, pagamony, maybe if I was there I would recognize it, but your description doesn't ring a bell

What is Hawthorne, by the way?

I remember an old thread on Hawthorne with a lot of detail. Search the old threads and you will find it.

Basic idea was that Hawthorne is the golf community at the western bottom of the resort and this was an attempt to link the top and bottom with a lift and a trail or two.

I was in college at the time Hawthorne was being developed but did not got to Snowshoe much as lift tickets were an outrageous $25 a day circa 1983.

The Hawthorne development occured much earlier than a fair amount of the development on top of the mountain.

There are better Snowshoe historians on here that can chime in.

..I don't know if I would call myself a blowshoe historian, but 25 bucks is an outrageous price to ski there circa 2013...

This is the cut between ridge and monkey. Not on the trail map. What is it ?

Hawthorne is the old name of the 18-hole golf course at Snowshoe, and the area in question used to be geographically called Hawthorne Valley in the lumberjack days. The Snowshoe gold course has now been renamed "Raven" and has attracted some notoriety for its challenging holes and favorable reviews.

for information on the Hawthorne slopes, see http://www.dcski.com/ubbthreads33/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=11391&page=1

damm that thread is almost a decade old.