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Anonymous
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It was pea soup only it wasn't green. The mountains of the mid Atlantic region may not be the tallest or snowiest, or most rugged, but there is one thing we do better than any mountains in the world - fog. The driving was hell, but the skiing and the company were great. <BR> <BR>Went to Snowshoe to ski with my friend Rob. He & his wife have a place there and go most every weekend. I must give Snowshoe due credit. Every run on the mountain was open and has been for a continuous 2 1/2 months. Nobody else in this part of the world has had all their terrain open at any time this season, and many are closed now. We found nice _Big_ bumps on Shay's and a shorter nice pitch on Grabhammer. (Many of the trails have logging derived names, like Sugarloaf.) The rain turning to snow predicted for Sat. eve. never turned to snow. We had been expecting boilerplate in the morning but instead found buttery rain softened corn. So what if you couldn't see 50 feet. There was nobody out there anyway. So what if there was rain. So what if you couldn't see many of the bumps until you hit them. Skiing by Braille is good for the soul. <BR> <BR>Rob is as serious a mtn. biker as he is a skier. (Beth stayed inside with the baby and thought we were nuts.) Rob kept stopping at the sides of runs and pointing out trails in the adjoining woods. Snowshoe has some very hairy downhill bike runs. He likened it to the moment when you drop the cornice into a couloir and know you're in it for the full ride. I pointed out that snow is a lot softer than dirt, rocks, trees, but he just grinned maniacally. <BR> <BR>I have often wondered about off piste at Snowshoe. There is a lot of territory there. It is a mega resort, which means among other things, a management and patrol that take a very dim view of off piste. It's not in the culture. It must be there, but I've never seen anyone entering or leaving the woods, nor tracks. It never occurred to me to ask a downhilling mtn. biker. Rob has all the stashes figured out and we will doing them the next time there is a big dump. <BR> <BR>I hope to never have another drive like the return home last night. The short way is to go over the shoulder of the mountain through Cass, an old logging town with company houses and wooden sidewalks like the coal towns of PA. The houses are all white, all the same, and were in desperate need of paint - 50 years ago. It's a scene from history. Now the Cass mountain scenic railway (runs in summer) is the only sign of life in the town. Anyhow Cass is 15 miles of 15-25 mph switchbacks from Snowshoe. I went 5-10 and just tried to keep the yellow line under the car. The fog became thin and wispy when I got down into Cass and soon was gone. But the clouds were dropping along with the temps. and there were still 100 miles of mountain driving to go and many ridges to cross. "Mountains" here are actually ridges hundreds of miles long and travelers have no choices. There is a reason why the country was confined to the east coast for 150 years. Every time the road began to climb the fog became pea soup. My car thermometer reported 34, 33, 32, 31. I was worried about ice, but I guess the ground was warm enough to prevent it. 6 1/2 hrs of mostly white knuckle driving to get home. The skiing was great.