Backcountry Hiking at a ski resort????? what what????

OVERVIEW

Hey hey!(“hay hay” if you speak horse), have you ever been skiing and thought to yourself, “hmmmmm I wonder what this place looks like during the offseason?” Well, I’m here to tell you, they’re just as beautiful. The gorgeous mountain are still there surrounding the resort, the bald face slopes provide a great habitat for wildflowers as well as constant vistas of the landscape, and there’s plenty of well-fortified and mapped out trails. There might even be some operational lifts to provide excellent views of the surrounding terain! (Not guaranteed). This is a great way to wrap up fall break and start the season of fall itself, as the Monongohela National Forest is at a much higher elevation than the rest of the state and most of Virginia too, so the fall colors will be much more pronounced than they currently are here.
Details right now are not the most fortified, but here’s what it will look like:
8 AM: Meet at the corner of Echols Dorm
8:15 Leave for Snowshoe!!
9 AM: Breakfast in Staunton (Maybe? Depending on whether or not we feel it’s a better idea to bring food ourselves or get stuff while out)
Sometime between 10:30 and 11:30 AM: Arrive at Snowshoe!
11:30AM – 5:30PM: Hike with meal breaks in between
5:30PM: Leave
8PM: Back in Charlottesville huaahhhh
Snowshoe does have some really nice restaurants, but they can be quite expensive, and I’m not even entirely sure they will be open on Tuesday. I’ve called them and they said they don’t know whether or not they’ll be open. Since Snowshoe offers many trails, I feel like it would be best to decide which one(s) we want to do when we’re there; that way, we could format our time around getting food if the restaurants are open. Again, the super fine details are not set in stone yet.
–WHAT TO BRING–
Yourself
Food (at least snacks, but we might adjust this to have food for the whole day)
Plenty of water!

This is listed as a beginner trip. We will be in an area with close medical care, and although the trails may be pretty steep at parts, we will likely have time for plenty of breaks and chill moments to flip rocks and pick flowers and be awesome and swag and cool.

Here is a map of the hiking trails! https://www.snowshoemtn.com/-/media/snowshoe/maps/pdf/22-backcountry.pdf