Qualla: Snowshoe Mountain

Snowshoe Mountain: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit VermontPowderKing, CC BY 4.0. Most ski resorts are arranged with the lodge and parking at the bottom of the mountain, so visitors look up at the runs and ride lifts to the top. Snowshoe Mountain, in central West Virginia, did the opposite. The village - hotels, restaurants, shops, condominiums - sits near the summit at 4,800 feet, and skiers descend from there. The reason was a North Carolina dentist named Thomas "Doc" Brigham, who looked at this former logging clearcut in the early 1970s and noticed that the only place flat enough to build a sizable village was on top. Snowshoe opened on December 13, 1974, with the village in the wrong place, and the wrong place turned out to be the right place after all.

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Image: VermontPowderKing | CC BY 4.0

Snowshoe Mountain: On Top of a Cut-Over Mountain

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marvin Kuo, CC BY 2.0. The mountain is actually called Cheat Mountain, not Snowshoe. Cheat's highest point is Thorny Flat, which reaches an elevation of 4,848 feet on private land within the resort's footprint. The resort sits in a bowl-shaped convergence where Cheat and Back Allegheny Mountain meet, a...

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Image: Marvin Kuo | CC BY 2.0

Snowshoe Mountain: Names from the Logging Era

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shayfan at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Brigham named the ski runs and lifts after the vocabulary of mountain logging. Grab Hammer. J-Hook. Ball Hooter. Skidder. Two trails, Shay's Revenge and Heisler Way, took their names from the brands of gear-driven steam locomotives that had hauled timber down these same slopes a ...

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Image: Shayfan at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Snowshoe Mountain: Financial Trouble and a Japanese Rescue

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marvin Kuo, CC BY 2.0. The first decade was hard. The resort hemorrhaged money. The remote location - more than three hours from any city - made marketing difficult, and the West Virginia ski market was not large to begin with. Snowshoe limped through the 1980s on small operating margins. In 1990, the ...

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Image: Marvin Kuo | CC BY 2.0

Snowshoe Mountain: Building a Mountaintop Village

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marvin Kuo, CC BY 2.0. Starting in 1999 with Rimfire Lodge, Intrawest expanded the existing village rapidly. Highland House, two phases of Allegheny Springs, the Seneca, Expedition Station - condominium-hotel buildings filled out the village over the next decade. Soaring Eagle Lodge in 2006 and Sawmill...

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Image: Marvin Kuo | CC BY 2.0

Snowshoe Mountain: The Mountain Biking Capital

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marvin Kuo, CC BY 2.0. The four-season vision Brigham had originally pitched took decades to materialize, but it eventually did. The Snowshoe Bike Park is now considered one of the largest, best, and most challenging downhill mountain bike parks in the world. Snowshoe has been a regular stop on the UCI...

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Image: Marvin Kuo | CC BY 2.0