Monday, January 3:

Waiting for Snow
I’m sitting in a bar at the base of two of the best ski resorts in the Southeast debating the cultural identity of West Virginia with a church group leader named Peter. I argue that West Virginia lies above the Mason-Dixon Line, technically making it a Northern state. Peter, as dumb as it sounds, claims West Virginia is below the Mason-Dixon Line. What a moron.

I spend the next 15 minutes explaining the history of the Mason-Dixon Line, how it divided Virginia and West Virginia during the Civil War and represents the cultural border between the North and South. At one point, I even quote Robert E. Lee.

Peter listens patiently and then proves everything I said is wrong by looking up the location of the Mason-Dixon Line on his Palm Pilot. Turns out, the Mason-Dixon Line doesn’t divide West Virginia and Virginia and has nothing to do with the Civil War. I hate Palm Pilots.

I’m in West Virginia’s Canaan Valley looking for snow. The area is known for its big snowfalls and backcountry powder stashes that last through April. But not this year. So far, it’s been one of the worst winters on record for snowsports.

“In 30 years, I can only remember a couple of winters that were this disappointing,” says Bill Smith, executive director of Canaan Valley’s visitor’s bureau.

Canaan still has a few runs open; most others in the Southeast have closed until colder temperatures arrive. Peter says I shouldn’t even bother skiing in the morning.

“I didn’t come all this way to ski in this crap,” he says, this time using his Palm Pilot to show me the most recent naked photos of Tara Reid.

I’m going skiing tomorrow anyway. These aren’t ideal ski conditions, but it’s the best snow within an 18-hour drive and I’m determined to ski it. I’m sort of like those poor college students who get drunk on Robitussin. It’s not the best drink around, but it’s all they can get their hands on. A trip like this is uniquely Southern. It’s not that these ski conditions don’t exist anywhere else-even Vail has seen its share of warm, rainy days with thin snow. It’s just that no one outside the South would even consider skiing in these conditions. For the most part, Western skiers are powder snobs. I’ve known skiers in Colorado that wouldn’t set foot on a mountain unless it’s covered with a recent snow, the sun’s out, and there’s no more than a gingerly breeze. They’re so used to perfect conditions that they won’t bother skiing anything else.

That’s not the case with Southern skiers. We’ll ski whatever we can get.

Joe Stephens of Snowshoe Mountain says this character trait is directly related to the success of Southern ski resorts. “Our guests aren’t spoiled by Western resorts with big powder,” he says. “So when they have challenging conditions like this, they make the best of it.”

Tuesday, January 4:

Slush Puppy
I get to Timberline Resort about an hour before the lifts open and watch the groomers push snow around to cover the bald spots. The few trails they have open are glossy white against the dead brown mountains. It’s all man-made snow, and from what I gather, there’s less and less of it everyday.

A heavy fog has settled on the mountains. I catch a ride with one of Timberline’s ski patrol members when the lifts start running. Josh is originally from D.C., but he fell in love with the valley while on vacation. He uprooted his life in the “big city” and moved to Timberline a few years ago. He looks around the brown ground beneath the lift and says we won’t be skiing any trees today. “Still, a day on the slush is better than a day at the office.”

There’s no one else on the mountain on this warm, rainy, foggy Monday morning. You don’t know surreal until you’ve skied alone through the mist and rain while listening to Beethoven (My headphones are attached to a small, handheld radio that only picks up the local NPR affiliate). It’s a moody, mellow piano morning.

The rain starts coming down in hard, horizontal sheets. The lifties start looking at me kind of funny. Locals know better than to ski in these conditions-with typically 150 inches of snow annually in these parts, they figure they can wait for the powder to fall. But here’s something you don’t know if you’ve never skied on a warm, rainy day: The snow becomes soft like powder. It’s a little heavier and wetter than the champagne powder you see in beer commercials, but it’s powder none-theless. And for us Southeastern skiers that spend the majority of our time navigating patches of slick ice, a warm day’s wet, heavy slush is heaven.

Wednesday, January 5:

Where’s the Nearest Starbucks?
At 10am I get a call from a girlfriend working at Massanutten in Virginia. She tells me not to bother making the trip.

“It’s been 70 degrees here for over a week,” she says. “It was fun the first couple of days, skiing in shorts and everything, but now the snow’s disappearing faster than crab legs on an all you can eat buffet.”

So I stick around for another day of skiing in Canaan Valley, making the most of the receding snowline. Typically, Canaan Resort is known for its boulevard-like blue runs and powder glades. But the only runs open today were artificially created by the groomers, who were on the mountain early pushing snow from the edges of the trails to the center. There’s one skinny lane of snow surrounded by mud on either side. The rain’s coming down harder, and the handful of remaining skiers on the mountain are scraping away the snow with every run.

This doesn’t bother the church groups, though. There’s a big gang of young adult Christians forming a large circle in the dining hall. They’re having a fellowship pep talk, revving up for another couple of hours of “injury free, fun filled skiing.”

The bartender in the hotel lounge complains that she can hear their Christian rock through the walls of the bar. She says it makes her want to drink more.

I love them for their enthusiasm. They don’t care that the snow is melting. They’re going to ski until the ski patrol escorts them off the property. Bad weather be damned; they’ve got Jesus to keep them warm and dry.

Afterwards, I saddle up to the same resort bar where I’ve downed my sorrows last night. There isn’t much to do in Canaan Valley outside of the two resorts. No go-cart tracks or giant sports bars here. The valley offers a sort of Mayberry existence where people still “go to town.”

Everyone in America has notions of wanting this sort of life, until they realize the nearest Starbucks is more than 100 miles away. You want a bookstore or movie theater? Hang a right on Highway 32 and drive south for an hour.

“You have to get used to it,” one snowboarder tells me. “I spend my time riding or mountain biking. You have to have a different set of priorities.”

Thursday, January 6:

Desperate
I’m driving to Snowshoe Resort because it’s the only mountain around with any snow.

I swallow a Sudafed and drive the 90 curvy miles to Snowshoe while listening to the “Garden State” soundtrack over and over. The combination of antihistamines and mellow-complaint rock puts me in a sort of functioning coma. I’m aware that there’s a sense of desperation to my pursuit. But it’s important to keep hope alive.

At a bar in Snowshoe, I see that it’s snowing in Flagstaff, Arizona. “The friggin’ desert is getting more snow than us,” mumbles Michael, an angry college student from Virginia Beach that I’ve been drinking with for about an hour or so. It’s College Week at Snowshoe, when thousands of matriculating skiers are lured to the mountain by cheap lodging, cheaper lift tickets, and fresh powder. Snowshoe made good on the lodging and tickets, but there isn’t much they can do about the powder. Still, there are more runs open on this mountain than at all other West Virginia resorts combined.

Just as the youth groups in Canaan turned to Jesus to make the most of their mediocre ski trip, the youth in Snowshoe are turning to alcohol. The bars are filled with kids from Atlanta and D.C., determined to wear their new snow gear, even if it’s only out to get a drink. The free buses are filled with underage kids riding from one end of the resort to the other, sharing cases of cheap canned beer.

“I’m stuck on a mountain with five bars and nothing else to do,” Michael says, holding up an empty Jack and Ginger. “It could be worse.”

Friday, January 8:

The Japanese Bubble
In Japan, they have these climate-controlled ski bubbles where they build a little hill and blow snow. They are self-contained ecospheres for the truly rabid ski fanatic. Japanese skiers fork over their hard-earned yen to ski easy terrain on manmade snow inside a bubble.

There are two teenage kids in Wisconsin that build their own ski jumps out of bales of hay. Whenever a few inches of snow falls on their farm, they use their dad’s tractor to push the fresh powder on top of the hay. It takes them several hours to build the jumps, which usually melt in less than a day. I admire their ingenuity and resourcefulness, and frankly, snow-covered hay bales sound pretty good right now. I’m standing atop Snowshoe’s Cupp Run, a mile and a half of bumps with a 1,200-foot vertical drop. Steep and nasty is how most skiers describe it.

There’s a ski patrolman at the top warning skiers not to go down. He’s just looking out for my safety, and I appreciate that. But what would those kids from Wisconsin do if they were in my shoes? What would the Japanese bubble skiers do? They’d ski.

So I launch down the mountain, taking the steep bumps slow and careful-granny style. The snow is dirt-brown and rock-hard, and it’s difficult to avoid the bare spots. But there’s an added rush to skiing a run like this on a day like this. Most Southern skiers are used to big crowds on little hills. We’re used to dodging Floridians gunning for land speed records. Today, there’s nobody else in sight. There are no lines at the lift. It’s just me and the mountain.