We had such a wonderful anniversary trip at the Snowshoe Mountain Resort in West Virginia, and I’m so excited to share it today! We knew it was owned by the same people who own Steamboat, Winter Park, and several other great ski resorts. And we knew that it has the most terrain and best resort experience in the Southeast. It was the “in the Southeast” part that I wasn’t sure about.
Well I can tell you I was so pleasantly surprised by how fun and varied the terrain was and how darling and convenient the village was that I can’t wait to go back!
There were actually three different mountains we could ski (Snowshoe, Silver Creek, and Western Territory), and due to various factors (i.e. laziness), we only made it to the biggest one! It kept us occupied, but it’s nice to know there is even more terrain to explore next time. (Also, the lifts are open until 10:30pm in Silver Creek for night skiing. This time we opted to watch those hard-core people walking home with their gear through the window of the bar.)
The Resort
The first thing that was kind of unique about Snowshoe is that the village was on top of the mountain instead of at the base. I found this made it way easier to get going once you were on the slopes, since gravity gave you a hand getting to that first lift. It was also big enough that we had to take a bus a mile or two to dinner one night, but definitely compact enough to be way more convenient than a true ski town, as the whole village is owned by the resort. I was worried that might mean that there weren’t that many good restaurant, bar, and shopping options, but I was totally wrong! There were so many that we barely scratched the surface.
The village (taken really early before anyone was up!)
Some of the sweet little vacation rentals
The entrance to Split Rock pools and hot tubs
This was a great lunch spot about two feet from the slopes.
Even the Starbucks was precious and included an outdoor fireplace.
All of the lodging looked basically like this, and it was fun to see everyone on their balconies.
On our first day, we had a really fun lunch at Sunset Cantina that involved seriously the best taco salad I’ve ever consumed. The only issue was that Will didn’t realize the apres ski thing was “apres” for a reason and that when you’re learning to ski, two beers at lunch is two beers too many. So he had an exciting afternoon after that banging up various parts of his body, and unfortunately we had to rest up during happy hour. But we rallied and had a blast that night exploring the shops and having North Carolina barbecue at the Foxfire Grille (gotta have that extra “e” in the name of a place decorated with flying pigs).
The village was always hoppin’ at night!
There were lots of cute ski gear shops.
So sweet, right? We loved hanging out around here at night and loved even more that it was all right outside our door. (Waiting for a bus in 20-degree weather is always my least favorite part of a ski trip.)
And a lot of this trip was also me experimenting with my brand new camera!
Where we Stayed
Because this was a special trip, Will sprang for the higher end of the lodging options, which is called “the Brigham Collection.” This was a subset of rooms that had extra amenities and a private check-in and such, and it was lovely. In the future, though, if we’re just going to ski and enjoy the village, there are so many inexpensive, convenient places to stay that would also be great!
One of the best parts about our place was the true ski-in, ski-out convenience. We had a locker in the locker room on the first floor that we could use our room key to ski directly into, put our gear in, and grab our shoes from. Then we would do it in reverse in the morning, and this completely eliminated the entire gear schlep (especially because this is where we got and returned our rentals too!). And just to belabor this point, since the village was at the top of the mountain, if you took the right lift coming home, you were literally skiing downhill both getting into and out of the lodge. BOOM.
Here are photos of our sweet little studio apartment.
It even had a navy wall, so we felt right at home. 
That all-important pink cooler was the vessel for our anniversary cake!
Our Actual Anniversary
We had the best day on the 28th. Somehow we got that magical combination of fresh powder from the night before, no lift lines, and 55-degree weather. God was obviously smiling on our celebration! We had the happiest day skiing, and Will came a looooong way on his skiing skills.
There was a big frozen lake at the base, and we loved this little patio bar and restaurant. We took a break but went with Coke this time. 🙂
At the end of the day, we weren’t going to mess this up again, so we went directly to apres ski. The sunset was just gorgeous that evening, and I stalled going into the bar so that I could try to work on my sunset photography (a work in progress!).
One of the really fun parts of this trip was how friendly everyone was. Because it was all self-contained, it was kind of like being at an all-inclusive resort, and we made lots of friends.
We went back to our place, turned on some music, got ready for dinner, and caught the bus! We had reservations at the nicer restaurant for that night, and I was surprised to find how big the resort really was, because it actually took us longer than I thought it would to drive there! The food and conversation were delightful and accompanied by some low-quality pics. 🙂 
We skipped dessert, obviously, because we had year-old wedding cake to eat! Back home, we popped some bubbly, sliced into that cake, and settled in to watch our wedding ceremony for the first time!
Guys, that cake was amazing. It honestly tasted like it was baked that day. It really made me a believer in the powers of the Yeti that it traveled by car all the way to DC in.
We had a snowy day skiing after that, where we comically lost each other twice and Will started passing me down the blues. We really, really didn’t want to leave, but it was such a wonderful trip. Our drive home actually became part of the trip itself, as the scenery of those rural West Virginia mountain towns with their Victorian homes was so beautiful. I don’t recommend the mountain route if you get carsick, though. (Oh, and we saw this, which I had seen featured on the Today Show recently!) What a great trip.
