MidAtlantic Skiing, Help me out!

K

KingBarry

New member
Hi folks. New to the board here. Had a question for you.

I live in the Washington, DC area, and am looking for a nearby place to ski. This winter, for many reasons, I won't be able to do much long-distance travel for my ski fix, so I am looking for the best resorts within a few hours driving time of DC. That would pretty much limit me to Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

I'd appreciate recommendations and comparisons between the appropriate resorts, and also suggestions for internet sites, message boards, etc that might offer comparisons.

What I am looking for is something so that I can rank my options on ski quality v. driving time.

Thanks so much to anybody that can offer any info.
 
d.c. huh? you really do have some good options. if ya don't mind a 3-4 hour drive, canaan valley can't be beat. with more annual snowfall than most maine and new hampshire resorts at close to 200 inches and the highest valley east of the mississippi, canaan is truly an amazing gem of a d.c. skiers destination, hell i drove all the way there from nh 2 years ago to hit a storm. here's a link to white grass touring center which is amazing for xc and b.c. skiing. as you'll see in the photos, they had good skiing on halloween. check it out
http://whitegrass.com/index.html
i'll get ya more info in a minute
rog
 
ok, more. there are two ski areas in canaan valley, canaan valley ski area which is the smaller of two is great for beginner/int and sells one ride 5 dollar tickets to access the b.c. we took the one ride up,put skins on, ascended a ridgline then desended 1800 vert in perfect pow down a perfect steep gas pipeline to a farmers field where we had a car parked. wild stuff. who knew? timberline ski resort is the better lift served option imho. the 1000 vert, 200 annual inches, steep trails and amazing glades that rival many in vermont make it a fun spot. definitely a way better 1000 vert than any small ski area in northern new england. i couldn't believe the tree skiing, a lot of it trimmed by locals and most of it great due to very little under brush there. i was lucky enough to be there after they'd had 90 inches in the 3 weeks b4 i got there followed by a fresh 16 inches on the morning i got there from north conway. i skied with a local. when i asked him why no one was skiing the trees in all of this perfect pow, he told me that, "the crew", had all gone to jackson hole for the week and had reported back of skiing hard pack under high pressure out there. we both laughed and continued getting face shots, ya, no shit, face shots in west virginny.
plus the scene and vibe are just so great, can't even describe it well enough. they do love their winters down there.
check out timberline
http://www.timberlineresort.com/summer/
rog
 
Can't go wrong with suggestion given. Think basic, laid-back and a little quirky. Plenty of reasonable lodging in the area: http://www.canaanvalley.org/West-Virgin ... dging.html . Day trip possible, but best to go up right after a good snow and stay a night or two, at least. If you go on weekdays, you'll have the place pretty much to yourself.

There are four resorts 1.5 to 2.0 hrs. from DC area: Whitetail, Liberty and Roundtop in south Pa, and Bryce in Virginia. All rely heavily on manmade snow, but have great snowmaking capacity. As such, pretty much trail skiing only. Whitetail is the best of these four in my humble opinion. As with any ski area close to cities, crowded on weekends, but eases up late afternoon when families begin to leave.

Blueknob (Pa.)--about three hrs-- can be good after a good snow. Maybe it's just my bad luck, but every time I have gone there (just a few times), the wind has absolutely howled. Wisp in Maryland is about three hours from DC and Seven Springs in Pa is about 3.5 hrs. away.

Most of these resorts have webcams, so you can monitor snow to some extent. Don't know if you're new to the area, but Mid-Atlantic skiing is vertically challenged and prone to disastrous mid-winter warm spells that can wreak havoc and last several days or more. But you'll have plenty of opportunities over the course of the winter, especially if you have some flexibility.
 
Work has really started to pick up steam here in NYC, but also I moved to Brooklyn from Manhattan. Those two factors have made my east coast life more livable for the time being. However, that isn't to say a move is out of the question whatsoever.
 
Welcome!

This is a link to the Washington Post's guide to all the resorts in the area, with links to the websites of each one: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/tr ... i/resorts/

As I'm sure you're already aware, there's a reason this area is called the heart of the MASH (Mid-Atlantic Snow Hell, in case you're not familiar with the term). But, IMHO, if you're not too choosy, you can have some very good ski-days around here. We have a friend who used to live in the West and taught extreme skiing. He's now on the patrol at Liberty and loves that place!

Liberty and Whitetail are our favorites for a day trip (within a 1.5- 2-hour radius), and Wisp within 3. When going to Wisp, you can stay economically at the Comfort Inn in Grantsville, about 20 minutes away, or there are lots of condos for rent. We enjoy Roundtop for variety, but it's a longer drive than Liberty and Whitetail and no better overall, although it does have the single most challenging run among the 3. We've only been to Blue Knob once, but it was fun also, and offers tree skiing, if you're looking for that. The Canaan Valley resorts are smaller than Wisp, farther away (about a 5-hour drive, including some stretches of really winding mountain roads), and offer no advantages that I can see other than the tree skiing. I've looked at the trail maps of the nearby Virginia resorts, and frankly have no desire to try any of them. We may want to go to some of the other Pennsylvania areas like 7 Springs sometime. We also want to try Snowshoe, which seems to be the biggest and I've heard is the best within a 6-hour drive or so.

You might want to look into the Liberty/ Whitetail/ Roundtop Advantage pass, which is a really good deal if you plan to ski more than 4 times or so at all of these place combined.

And finally, keep in mind that United and Frontier fly non-stop to Denver from here and Delta to SLC, so those places are only 4- 5 hours away (once you're airborne). :-)

I'd be happy to answer specific questions.
 
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