go.

Montie and I went up the Cherohala Skyway on Saturday, and did some skiing. We called the gas station at the bottom of the mountains before leaving to see if they knew how much snow had fallen. They didn’t know, but guessed there would be about a foot on the ground. It had snowed several times in the preceding days. We were skeptical, but loaded the car anyway.

Driving up the mountain, I was again surprised by how much difference a little elevation makes; within 100 vertical feet the ground goes from green to white. The higher we went, the deeper the snow on the sides of the road. The road itself had been plowed at some point, and had seen many cars before us. Road conditions varied from dry to an inch of slush.

The snow at the highest point was 8-12 inches on the ground. It was not perfectly dry, but very good nonetheless. For the south, it was magnificent.

We parked at the first lot on the North Carolina side of the mountain, afraid to go to far down that side of the mountain. Going down is easier than coming up in my 2 wheel-drive Audi. We set out on skis for a road that Montie knew that is usually blocked to vehicles in the winter. Alongside the road where we skied, the powder was over a foot deep, and breaking trail was difficult, even downhill. We quickly warmed from the effort. What a great way to spend a day.

We came to Montie’s road, and the snow was pristine. We skied a short distance, but the trail was flat, and we wanted some variation. We found a small hill and skied down it a couple times. Here’s Montie on said hill:

After that we headed back to the car. We knew a more interesting trail that we wanted to check out.

We parked near the second trail and sat in the car to warm our hands (cold from prepping the car for the short trip up the hill) and saw a black Jeep coming up the hill flashing its lights: our friend Mike. He had come at our recommendation, and brought his girlfriend Becca, and Janielle, another friend. We hung out with them for a few minutes before setting off on the trail.

We had skied this trail about a month earlier. It winds gently up and down through the woods, and is beautiful when covered in snow. There was more snow this time than when we last skied it, but the trail had already been broken, so we made good time. Shortly before turning around to return to the car, I took a short video while following Montie (very shaky, my apologies):

At the point where we had planned on turning around we caught up with the group whose tracks we had been following. The three of them were from Knoxville, and each carried a medium-sized pack. I assumed they were camping, but when I asked, they said no, but they were going to have some hot chocolate. I still wonder what exactly was in the packs.

We skied a short section of steeper, slightly overgrown trail, and I fell several times. After a few minutes of that, and hurting my shoulder a little on one awkward fall, I was quite frustrated. We headed back, and I took a quick pace to let off some steam. It had been snowing lightly off and on, but the snow began falling harder. My uncovered head was hot from exertion, and the snow first melted then turned to ice in my hair. By the time I got back to the car, I had collected quite a bit of ice, and worked out my frustration.

See all of our pictures from the trip