Snowshoe is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in Pocahontas County,

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

, United States, centering on the

Snowshoe Mountain Snowshoe Mountain is a ski resort in the eastern United States, located in Snowshoe, West Virginia. The resort has skiable terrain across and covers a total area of in the Allegheny Mountains, which are a part of the vast Appalachian Mountain ...

ski resort. It is situated in the

Allegheny Mountains The Allegheny Mountain Range (; also spelled Alleghany or Allegany), informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less devel ...

at a bowl shaped convergence of two high mountain ridges —

Cheat Cheating generally describes various actions designed to subvert rules in order to obtain unfair advantages. This includes acts of bribery, cronyism and nepotism in any situation where individuals are given preference using inappropriate cr ...

and

Back Allegheny Mountain Back Allegheny Mountain is a long mountain ridge in eastern West Virginia. It is part of the Shavers Fork Mountain Complex in the Allegheny Range of the Appalachians. Geography Back Allegheny Mountain runs north to south and east to west, c ...

s — at the head of the

Shavers Fork Shavers Fork of the Cheat River is situated in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, USA. It is 88.5 mi (142.5 km) long and forms the Cheat at its confluence with Black Fork at Parsons.DeLorme (1997). ''West Virginia Atlas ...

of the

Cheat River The Cheat River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed August 15, 2011 tributary of the Monongahela River in eastern West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania in the Uni ...

. Snowshoe is site of the second highest point in the state and the peak

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

for Cheat Mountain, at

Thorny Flat Thorny Flat () is the second highest peak in the U.S. state of West Virginia, after Spruce Knob. Thorny Flat is the high point of the ridge known as Cheat Mountain Cheat Mountain is an exceptionally high and rugged ridge situated in the Allegheny ...

, which reaches

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

. Snowshoe has several commercial areas, with the most prominent being The Village at Snowshoe, located at the summit of the mountain (rather than at its base). While the area is still best known for winter activities, today the resort has extensive

mountain biking Mountain biking is a sport of riding bicycles off-road, often over rough terrain, usually using specially designed mountain bikes. Mountain bikes share similarities with other bikes but incorporate features designed to enhance durability and pe ...

trail A trail, also known as a path or track, is an unpaved lane or small road usually passing through a natural area. In the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, a path or footpath is the preferred term for a pedestrian or hiking trail. Th ...

s, a popular

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

course, wedding and convention areas, a number of summer

outdoor activities Outdoor recreation or outdoor activity refers to recreation done outside, most commonly in natural settings. The activities that encompass outdoor recreation vary depending on the physical environment they are being carried out in. These activiti ...

, and also hosts a

Grand National Cross Country The Grand National Cross Country Series is an American motorcycle racing series. The off-road race series was founded by Dave Coombs in 1975 and is sanctioned by the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA). The competition is similar to motocr ...

racing event. About 480,000 skiers visit the area each year, primarily from

and the larger cities of the Mid-Atlantic and

Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

. Snowshoe Mountain's large property includes several developed resort areas, a conservation area, and expansive backcountry that covers in total. Ski slopes make up of the resort, which include the Snowshoe Basin, Western Territory, and Silver Creek areas.

History

The area, then indistinct from Slatyfork, had been logged from about 1905 to 1960, after which it was abandoned. Thomas "Doc" Brigham discovered the mountain and believed it would be a good location to build a new ski resort. Brigham, a dentist from North Carolina, had previously opened the Sugar Mountain and

Beech Mountain Beech Mountain is a town in both Avery and Watauga counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 320. The town is located atop Beech Mountain and is the highest town east of the Rocky Mountains ...

ski areas. Snowshoe Mountain opened to skiing on December 13, 1974.

Climate

With a mean temperature of (as seen in the climate box below) in January and in July, Snowshoe can be considerably cooler than nearby areas at lower elevations. The average winter season is just slightly more than 130 days each year, while the spring, summer, and fall seasons typically include a series of sports, recreation, and cultural events. Snowshoe has a

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...

(

Dfb DFB may refer to: * Deerfield Beach, Florida, a city * Decafluorobutane, a fluorocarbon gas * Dem Franchize Boyz, former hip hop group, Atlanta, Georgia * Dfb, Köppen climate classification for Humid continental climate * Distributed-feedback las ...

). The resort's altitude at almost a mile high provides for weather conditions that more closely resemble the rigorous winters of Northern

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

than the milder climate of the

Upland South The Upland South and Upper South are two overlapping cultural and geographic subregions in the inland part of the Southern and lower Midwestern United States. They differ from the Deep South and Atlantic coastal plain by terrain, history, econom ...

. The massive horseshoe formed by the

Cheat Mountain Cheat Mountain is an exceptionally high and rugged ridge situated in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, USA. It is about long (north to south) and more than five miles (8 km) wide at its widest. Its highest point is at its sou ...

Range creates its own

micro-climate A microclimate (or micro-climate) is a local set of atmospheric conditions that differ from those in the surrounding areas, often with a slight difference but sometimes with a substantial one. The term may refer to areas as small as a few squa ...

, frequently affected by orographic lift of mid-level Great Lake moisture-laden fronts, resulting in massive snowfalls. Snowshoe averages over 13 feet of natural snow per year.

References

External links

* {{authority control Unincorporated communities in Pocahontas County, West Virginia Unincorporated communities in West Virginia