It was such a wonderful day this Saturday, that Dave and I quickly decided to drive to one of the nearest ski resorts. Our choice was the Massanutten ski resort located in Virginia’s beautiful Shenandoah Valley in McGaheysville. It was a new place to visit for us and our drive with the Blue Ridge mountain view was very pleasant.
At just under 2.5 hours from Washington, DC, Massanutten ski resort is a nice and close getaway. The resort has 14 trails, two terrain parks and is open for night skiing. Its 2,925-foot mountain boasts a 1,110-foot vertical drop, the highest not only in Virginia but in Maryland and Pennsylvania as well.
It was crowded there, but blue skies and temps in the low 60s made skiing quite enjoyable. The only drawdack was that the snow was getting slushy. It made us work harder on the slopes. Trails there are nice, well maintained and groomed. We made a few runs down the blues Mass Transit and Showtime (formerly Rebel Yell) trails. These trails seemed pretty steep to me. I might be out of practice lately. 🙂
I like that the lifts have a loading conveyor belt that carries the skiers and riders as the chair comes around from behind. I like it much better than the detachables – no shuffling along on your skis – just ride the belt and wait for the chair.
There is a cute bench shaped as a lift chair at the cafe entrance.
I was surprised that Massamutten resort offers such a wide range of activities all year arround. In addition to skiing, tubing, the water park and the spa, the resort offers a wide array of activities – an arcade, golf, disc golf, hiking, horseback riding, exercise and arts and crafts classes, go-carts, mountain biking and more. We need to come back here for tubing. I have never tried tubing before.
