West Virginia

Location: Snowshoe (like the rabbit)
When: Mid January 
Miles traveled: 327
Price of gas: 2.99
Interest: Snowboarding
High point: Gaining confidence during 2nd class
Low point: Falling hard on tailbone
One thing learned: How to snowboard!
Temperature range: -1 to 36°F

    After Pennsylvania, I made a one night stop in northern Virginia as I made my way to West Virginia.  More on that next week.  In West Virginia, my goal was Snowshoe, a ski resort.  While there, I camped a few nights, stayed at a motel for the single digit nights, and camped the remaining nights.  Towards the end of the week, during a phone call home, I described the 20° nights as warm!  Day time temps were good for snowboarding.

    Why learn snowboarding rather than skiing?   I thought learning to snowboard would help my skills of surfing.  However, snowboarding is a bit different than surfing.  The stance is similar, but one's weight is on a different foot and it hurts a lot more when falling onto packed snow rather than water.  One thing that is nice about snowboarding is the zero chance of being swamped by waves.

Learning slope
    I signed up for two classes a couple days apart, taking advantage of the lower weekday prices.  It also gave my tailbone some time to recover from a painful fall that happened at the end of my first class.  The classes do a good job of teaching essentials like stopping, turning, what to do in "oh shoot!" moments, and getting on/off a ski lift.  By the end of my 2nd day on the slopes I technically had "gotten off" the learning slope... by walking down an easy slope and riding the lift back up.  I was not skilled enough to snowboard down the slope, but I wanted to have the experience of "going down" and riding a bigger lift back up.  I tried to slip stop/sideslip all the way down (it's what you do in "oh shoot!" moments) but fell after a fair distance and the grade was too steep to easily stand back up on the board.  Slip stopping is like holding a deep squat with your toes lifted for a loooooooong time.

    I think snowboarding does a good job of teaching a person to stand centered on their feet.  Little shifts in weight forward, backwards, left, or right quickly affect performance and being balanced on one's feet is really important starting out.  I also discovered I have more confidence when snowboarding with other people like a class, and less confidence when snowboarding alone.

    Also near Snowshoe is Cass Scenic Railroad.  They offer round trip rides on their steam and diesel trains.  It looked like a great opportunity for my first ever train ride, but when I showed up, the station was closed.  The Company General store was open so I explored that instead.  The town of Cass was once a logging town and part of the C&O railroad.  C&O = Chesapeake and Ohio. 

    I had a good time in West Virginia.  Not sure if I enjoy snowboarding more than surfing, but I don't think I enjoy it enough to buy my own gear and move to a mountain.  Oh, Cheat Mountain Pizza restaurant in Snowshoe has excellent garlic wings!


Cool tree covered mountains

Sunset

Wonderful view out motel window


Cass train station

Things that freeze: Clothes, drinking water, dish soap, cooler contents, fruit, Nutella, pouch meals (the tear open and eat type), chap-stick, and wet/face wipes.

Things that were not yet frozen: Toothpaste, canned food, nail polish, and hand cream.