Photo provided by Snowshoe Mountain Resort.

West Virginia’s Snowshoe Mountain Resort just wrapped up a stellar Thanksgiving holiday, and will go into the month of December with more terrain open than it has had in any November in the resort’s 27-year history. Snowshoe opened last Wednesday, Nov. 22 with 25% of its terrain open. By Saturday, over 50% of Snowshoe’s terrain was open, with 31 trails available for skiing and boarding.

Unprecedented early-season conditions were helped in part by Mother Nature, which covered the 4,800-foot high resort with a few inches of snow leading into opening day. But credit is given primarily to Snowshoe’s snowmaking team, which was out in force for 216 straight hours through Friday, Nov. 24. During that time, snowmaking conditions at Snowshoe were excellent - in the teens with low humidity - and 2,500 tons of snow were being produced per hour.

Snowshoe had originally planned to open on Friday, Nov. 17, but decided to delay opening a few days to continue snowmaking in full force and to increase the terrain available on opening day.

“This gave the snowmakers a chance to really blast the terrain day and night without any traffic taking away from their efforts,” explains Snowshoe’s Joe Stevens. “The snowmakers did an awesome job,” he adds.

Word got out about the great conditions at Snowshoe, leading to a 43% increase in opening day visits over last year, as well as a 115% increase over last season’s four-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend. In terms of visits, this Thanksgiving holiday was Snowshoe’s second busiest ever.

Snowshoe’s snowmaking team is taking a much-deserved break, thanks in part to milder temperatures this weekend. But cold is expected to return by the middle of the week, when Snowshoe will move to expand open terrain even further.

“We are going to start cutting the halfpipe on Tuesday and it should be ready by the weekend,” explained Stevens. “We are going to make the move over to the Western Territory as soon as possible and hope to have Cupp Run open top to bottom for Demo Weekend,” he added, weather permitting. Demo Weekend is scheduled for Dec. 8-10.

“These conditions are like taking an opening kickoff and running it back for a touchdown”, said Joe Stevens. “It was tough sitting in my office knowing what was available right out my office door.”

Snowshoe’s open trail count currently stands at 31, with a 30-40 inch base and loose granular conditions. The terrain park is open with limited features.