A Weekend at Snowshoe: Part One

Snowshoe Mountain Resort is situated at the top of a ridge, beautifully perched in the Allegheny Highlands in 'Wild and Wonderful' West Virginia. During the winter, the resort sees a greater annual snowfall than all of its southeastern and mid-atlantic counterparts, and even more than many of its northeastern brethren. This is mostly due to the elevation of the mountain, which sits at nearly 5,000 feet above sea level, or more precisely 4,848 feet. During the warmer months, Snowshoe transforms into a more comprehensive playground, offering visitors the chance to tear it up on a Polaris RZR tour, whack some golf balls, shoot some guns at sporting clays, take guided horseback rides, scramble up a rock wall; they even offer a zip line tour through the mountain top village. The primary reason for most visits to the mountain once the snow disappears is of course, mountain biking. With close to 40 lift assisted trails, 1500 feet of vertical relief, a racing heritage that goes back decades, dozens of miles of singletrack woven throughout the resort area in addition to the bike park trails, and an entire mountain top village at your disposal, the appeal to this place is universal among riders.

Snowshoe first began offering riders shuttle service back in 1988, providing them with access to both the western and eastern aspects. The eastern aspect would eventually receive lift access, which in turn opened the floodgates as Snowshoe's popularity among the downhill crowd grew immensely. In 2004, the mountain hosted the now defunct NORBA Nationals, and since then has hosted several Pro GRT rounds, in addition to Collegiate USAC National Championships. In 2006, the western slopes were finally opened up to lift served access, which in turn allowed for the development of what would become the park's longest trails due to the relief found on this side of the mountain.

Last summer we decided to spend a weekend exploring the mountain and all that it offers, and we brought along some friends from Cane Creek Cycling Components, as there may not be a mountain bike company more loaded with riding talent than this Fletcher, NC-based collective. Jumping in on the wild and wonderful weekend would be Evan Voss, Sam Anderson, Kip Otterness, and Trey Cassell. Over the course of a few days, we would explore everything the mountain had to offer riders, from steep and deep DH tracks, to floaty and flowy jumplines, and of course, miles of dark and loamy singletrack, the kind you can only find in but just a few parts of the planet.

We also took the opportunity to speak with Josh Olson, who has been running the bike park for three years now after moving east from his home in Colorado, where he spent the decade prior honing his craft as a trail builder. As you're about to find out, while Snowshoe has worked hard to enhance their profile in the bike park industry to date, the future hosts some very big ambitions for this West Virginia mountaintop.





What were your initial impressions of Snowshoe and what kinds of changes have you been a part of in your time there?

Josh Olson: I grew up in Colorado, so the majority of my time riding was out west. Keystone, the surrounding mountains, Moab; so when I took the job with Snowshoe I was well aware of its reputation and the quality of the riding here, but I had never been. When I showed up, I was happily surprised at the trail network that existed here and the work that they had been putting into this place. I felt like it compared well to the places I was used to riding back home.

Snowshoe has had a long history with putting on elite level races, and that’s something that we still focus hard on. We want to continue that legacy. We have also made a big push to look at the corridor, or flow style trails and getting them to where we want them for all ability levels.








What are you doing specifically to encourage riders from a variety of backgrounds to come and ride at Snowshoe?

Josh Olson: The three main trails that we’ve added to help improve everyone’s riding experience are Easy Street, which is a straightforward trail designed to allow folks to experience the mountain at a very non-intimidating level. It’s a graded path with a couple of berms that goes from the top to the bottom of the mountain. We also added Skyline, which is an intermediate jump trail, with close to 50 jumps that range from a 6-foot skipper, up to 20-foot long table tops. You can roll everything as well. We’ve had a lot of success with that one, and we’d like to add a complementary trail to that one. The third trail that we’ve added is technically a corridor trail called Dream Weaver, but we built it with a smaller machine to give it a singletrack feel. It’s not really a jump trail, but it is loaded with 'easter eggs' for more advanced riders who are looking to play around a bit more.

One of the things I have found in my time as a trail builder is that you can build a trail at an intermediate level, but design it in a way that allows for more advanced riders to seek challenges out, whether it’s doubling or tripling a set of rollers, transferring from one section of trail to another, connecting berms with a jump, etc. We have made a commitment to the riders around here to maintain our gnarlier, natural terrain and not take machines through and 'pave' them. Those are big traditions here. We might need to go in with some hand tools and maintain them, but we want to keep our heritage intact. We have the space, so we’re able to go find the places where we can put some flow and corridor trails in.















What does the racing heritage do for your brand?

Josh Olson: It’s very important to us. Every aspect of the bike park has to be important in order to run a successful operation. Whether it’s flow trails, or jump trails, or race tracks, or technical downhill for riders who aren’t into racing, so we really try to maintain our attention across the board, and racing is obviously a big part of who we are. I don’t know for sure, but I know that some big NORBA events were held here back when we were pretty young. I came into this knowing that racing has been a big reason behind the success of the park, and it’s something I intend to keep going. We’ve hosted the Pro GRT over the past two years, and last year we had some Pro GRT riders here and they helped us implement a course that was about 50% brand new. We continue to push that effort and the Pro GRT was awarded to us again this year. We hosted collegiate championships last summer and will be hosting them again this year. Due to the success of that, we’ve been awarded the 2017-18 USAC Mountain Bike National Championships. We’re really excited about that, and if we get a strong reception from all of the work we’re putting into this, we’d like to make a push to bring a World Cup to Snowshoe.

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To learn more about the bike park and to plan your own trip to Snowshoe Mountain, click here!

Stay tuned for "Part Two: Party on the Trail(bike)s", coming soon!

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Snowshoe Bike Park

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MENTIONS: @briceshirbach / @CaneCreekCyclingComponents

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