board beyond belief

Right back into it after a long weekend of snowboarding in West Virginia. After lots of homework, we settled on Snowshoe Mountain, which is widely touted as being the biggest and best mountain to be found in the Mid Atlantic region, an area not known for chest deep powder and vast white wildernesses. But a great find. Snowshoe is an “upside down” resort, which means you drive interminably upward through the mountainous backwoods of West Virginia then arrive at your destination with all the slopes below you. “Country Roads” got us there, with Gina and I knowing a surprising number of the lyrics, belting them out to an unimpressed James and a sleeping Siena. The resort, to the unschooled eye, looks large, with various accommodation options, a mallish village area with shops and restaurants and a total of 60 runs, 14 lifts and 1000 vertical feet. We were located in the Expedition Centre in a compact hotel room with mini-kitchen overlooking the action of the beginner's slope. Perfect. Day 1 was a little tricky, with neither James nor I spending enough time on the beginner's slope and thus having a fairly daunting time of it on our first green run – point your board down the mountain and wait for your first bone crunching fall sort of thing. Then we punished ourselves for our arrogance by heading over to Silver Creek – once a standalone resort, now part of Snowshoe – for some icy night riding. Our efforts on day two were more restrained, with more focus being given to braking rather than acceleration, and by day three, Gina and I were both making graceful, sweeping turns some of the time, while James was making it to the bottom even faster. Siena took it in turns being babysat by Gina and I, but this too will pass. By the time we made one last early morning run on day four we were hooked. A highlight of the trip was West Virginia itself. For much of the drive, we drove through the Washington State Forest, dense and endless, hairpin bends with occasional vistas of mountains rolling endlessly west, punctuated with variations on the theme of “rustic habitation” from neat whitewashed clapboard homes with stars and stripes hanging from the porch to rundown trailers with broken stock cars in the yard. And everywhere, the plaintive, nasal stylings of country music. Everywhere. The lift line. The Tastee Freeze where we had burgers on the way there and back. The pizza place. The barbecue place. The snowboard shop. That or classic rock, most incongruously “Highway to Hell” as J and I were waiting in a light line for a highspeed quad to take us to back to the top of the mountain one beautiful, sunny morning.