By Whit Wallace

The Village at Snowshoe. In the summer this space is filled with tents and vendors. Photo credit: Alex Grinchenko.

Packed into the ridges of the Appalachian Mountains, 4848 feet above sea level, is a crucial piece of American skiing history and the perfect place to spend winter: Snowshoe, West Virginia. Unlike popular ski resorts in Colorado or Utah, the central buildings and the surrounding resort at Snowshoe are found at the peak of the mountain instead of clustered into a valley at the base. The main resort area, called The Village, is surrounded by apartment-style condos with restaurants and local shops. A classic characteristic of the village is the ever-growing snow pile throughout the season, as residents with shovels put in their contributions to keep the cobblestones clear of snow and ice. 

This wall and train tracks are everything that remains of the town of Spruce. Photo credit Youtube user Cody Carr.

Snowshoe was originally a logging town, with the main population living in the now-abandoned ghost town of Spruce. It was the “highest and coldest town East of the Mississippi” according to Onlyinyourstate.com. The town was so remote no roads ever led to it, only train tracks. The residents of Spruce would travel by train to what is now the Snowshoe resort area and log the natural spruce trees growing there. After the logging company abandoned the area, due to catastrophically damaging the ecosystem, the town slowly was abandoned, and the last resident was said to have left in the mid-1940s. Over the next 30 years, the area was abandoned and forgotten while the forests recovered until Thomas “Doc” Brigham started a ski resort in 1972. As a tribute to its origins, nearly every run and lift in Snowshoe are named after some sort of logging term. The popular lift Ballhooter refers to “a logger who rolls logs down slopes too steep for teams to handle.” The famous trail Shay’s Revenge is a salute to Ephiram Shay, the man who invented the first trains equipped to deal with the steep slopes of the Appalachians. 

Snowshoe, described as “almost heaven” by their website, is home to the largest network of ski runs in the southeast. “It has way better acreage and snow,” said Page Wells (‘23) in comparison to nearby Virginia resorts. The heartbeat of Snowshoe is the ski runs. Snowshoe has over 50 runs fed by 11 lifts. The lifts consist of three high-speed quads, six fixed-grip triples, and two fixed-grip quads. They make the mountain well-equipped to handle thousands of skiers every day. 

A skier enjoying the park on opening weekend. Photo credit: Julian Orlando.

The mountains around Snowshoe are well known for their high amounts of snow compared to other locations on the East Coast. It gets more snow than nearby resorts by a significant margin. They boast an average of 180 inches of average snowfall per year, and nearby resorts such as Massanutten and Wintergreen average 23.3 inches and 14 inches, respectively. During Thanksgiving weekend this fall, there were already over 12 inches of natural snow, in addition to the man-made snow on the ground. The park crew had already built great features in the terrain park, with two jumps and over 18 features total on opening weekend. 

Senior and former Oregon resident Johnathan Yackle (‘22) said, “compared to Oregon, there is nowhere near as much snow, and the runs are far shorter and easier.” Yackle grew up skiing in Oregon and thinks “Oregon skiing can be much harder, but at Snowshoe, I can do the hardest runs without getting nervous at all.”

The Western Territory on November 20, 2021. Cupp Run (left) and Shay’s Revenge (right). Photo credit: Instagram user Snowshoemtn.

The most advanced part of Snowshoe, called The Western, only has two runs, but they are about twice as long as runs on the rest of the mountain, 1.5 miles long and 1500 ft. of vertical drop. It also has the only double-black run in Snowshoe, Lower Shay’s Revenge. Shay’s is accompanied by Cupp Run, designed by world-class racer and French skier Jean-Claude Killy. Currently Cupp Run is host to the longest-running giant slalom race in North America, the Cupp Run Challenge. “Upper Shay’s to Lower Cupp is easily my favorite run,” Wells said. I agree with Wells; Upper Cupp tends to be rather icy in the morning, and Lower Shay’s has a quarter-mile flat before its immense pitch. Skating the flat is often not worth the steep, leaving Upper Shays to Lower Cupp as the best run Snowshoe has to offer. 

American racer Dakotah Norton fighting for the podium during the UCI World Cup at Snowshoe.
Photo credit: Nathen Hughes.

Snowshoe is not only a winter ski resort but also thrives in the summer as well. With a silver certification from the International Mountain Biking Association, it is home to some of the toughest terrain in the country. Snowshoe is well known for their North Shore-style trails. They are steep and technical, with few manmade features. Instead, they make use of the natural shape of the mountain. In September 2019, they hosted the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup finals. This led to almost 80,000 people storming the mountain to watch the 1st World Cup race in the USA in over 20 years. I began mountain biking about four years ago, and Snowshoe’s downhill park has led me to a plethora of scrapes and bruises. It is an amazing way to get your adrenaline pumping during the more relaxed months of summer and avoid the Richmond heat. 

A snowboarder performing a nose grab off a jump above his skier friends. Photo credit: Lily Thomas.

Despite being a resort, Snowshoe has a dedicated group of locals who live there either year-round or about six months out of the year. Julian Orlando is one of these locals. Orlando described the Snowshoe community as “isolated, but with visitors from all over the East Coast. It has a different feel than the rest of West Virginia. While the skiing isn’t the greatest, the locals and visitors are all amazing.” Another resort local, McKenna Woody, loves “the small town resort” and how “all the locals know each other, and how people around here come from totally different backgrounds but still share the same interest and love for skiing and the outdoors.” Despite being in the middle of nowhere, even beyond cell data towers, Snowshoe takes nearly 500,000 visitors per year and unites them all under skiing, snowboarding, and having a good time during the winter. 

Featured image credit: Whit Wallace.