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Day Three: Day three got started a little later as it took me longer to post ski report updates and I had a few errands to run. That’s typical on a ski trip. You can plan all you want ahead of time for groceries and other supplies, but you will not figure things correctly. On the way up from North Carolina, we stopped in Lewisburg, WV at the Wal Mart there and spent almost $200 for our five and over $500 for our group and we still found that we needed chips, a toothbrush and duct tape. One ski trip suggestion: Always take duct tape with you! It has an amazing number of uses. I use it to duct tape the tips of my four year olds skis together. It really works to give youngsters confidence to work on balance rather than have to worry about keeping the tips of their skis together.
So anyway I got a later start on the day than I’d hoped to because Day One’s First Tracks was hard to beat. We hit the slopes at about 10:45am and skied until we got hungry, which was about 12:45. Today we decided to hit the room for lunch again. The crowds had already filled up Foxfire Grill. Here’s another hint: Get one of your group who isn’t nuts about skiing to go to the restaurant at around 11am and hold a table and then you get the best of both worlds. That’s our gameplan for Wednesday. So if you’re reading this and happen to be at Snowshoe, PLEASE save us a table!
The conditions of the mountain were night and day different from Day One. Conditions this morning were very nice. I’d rank them an 8.5 out of 10, simply because it’s hard to beat the powder of Monday morning. The snowmakers and groomers had done a great job on all of the runs that we hit and we’ll hit the slopes again after a bite to eat and a few brews. The lift lines were a bit worse than on Monday although not too bad. We stayed away from the Ball Hooter lift and lift lines averaged about 12 to 15 minutes. That leads me to make another suggestion: When planning for a peak period ski trip, consider how a mountain is layed out. When ALL slopes lead to one spot at the bottom of a mountain…you are going to get a HUGE bottleneck of people with lift lines sometimes approaching 30 minutes. That’s what’s so good about Snowshoe; their mountain is so spread out, with 14 lifts servicing a wide mountain…that lift lines don’t grow too unbearable.
Anyway, we did lunch and afterwards headed back for a few more runs. Widowmaker, Moonshine, Upper and Lower Flume were all favorites today and while I didn’t make it over to The Cupp today, a few in our group did and said that The Cupp was in great shape today with virtually no icy spots and the left lines were almost non-existent. I had made a deal with my brother-in-law and while I took our groups kids to Split Rock Pools for some fun…he took the ladies shopping. I am not sure HOW I won that deal. Split Rock was a ton of fun with heated into and outdoor pools and several hottubs to boot. It was kind of cute seeing the lifeguard outside dresses in a ski suit, with a scarf wrapped around her face from the cold temps…and yet we were swimming. It would have been funny to see one have to dive in in that get up. The water’s only three feet deep…so there was never much danger of that happening! We stayed in the water for about two hours and headed back to the room. It was a much faster trip across the village than it was to the pool because we were still semi-wet!
The ladies (and the saintly brother-in-law) returned from shopping the area’s many shoppes and boutiques. He was exhausted (sorry dude) and the gals were busy showing off all that they had purchased…from t-shirts to gifts for the family back home.
Since it was getting late to try and make dinner arrangements with the Holiday crowds in full force…we made chili, grilled cheese sandwiches and had a ball visiting between all three units that my group occupies. We relaxed, watched some football and called it a night.
See you on Day Four.
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