We recently went snow skiing at Beech Mountain. Not familiar with it? It’s in North Carolina.

Wait – North Carolina and snow skiing? Is that even a real thing?

Fortunately for those who live in the Southeastern part of the US, there are a handful of ski resorts in North Carolina (Beech Mountain, Sugar Mountain, Cataloochee), West Virginia (Snowshoe, Winterplace, Timberline) and Virginia (Wintergreen).

Choosing to Go

For years, we’ve been talking about taking our children snow skiing. With the girls now in high school, I knew we had to do it sooner than later. The impasse came this year when I wanted to book a ski trip to Taos, New Mexico for the week after Christmas. My DH (dear hubby) refused – saying he didn’t want to spend money on airfare and taking off lots of time from work if it turned out our kids didn’t like skiing.

He wanted to try skiing much closer to home. My fear was that the Eastern skiing was known for being icier than the powder-snow conditions in the west. Our kids might have such a hard time that it might ruin their desire to try “real” skiing in Colorado.

I realized that if we were to try skiing, it had to be nearby — or else it wasn’t going to happen. We booked a room in Blowing Rock since it was near three resorts – Beech Mountain, Sugar Mountain and Appalachian Ski Mountain.

Beech Mountain

We chose Beech Mountain because they offered 1/2 day skiing closer to the time of our arrival from 1-5 pm. Our lift and rental tickets were $196 since it was a weekday and after the holidays.

Parking was easy as people were leaving from the 9 am -1 pm ski shift. Buying tickets was simple. The hold up occurred with the equipment rentals. We stood in a long line for at least 30 minutes. I was anxious as I knew the clock was ticking and we wanted to sign the kids up for ski lessons at 1:30. Since it was now 1:35 pm, we had clearly missed that window. Unfortunately, when we finally got our equipment, we found out that the 2:30 group lessons were full.

We felt we could teach our kids without the lesson. Thing 1 and I headed to the chairlift for the green slope. Once in line, I caught the eye of DH and Thing 2 way behind us. They headed our way until Thing 2 face-planted in the snow. She couldn’t get up and DH looked frazzled trying to help her. He took her back to the ski school and signed her up for the 3:30 slot.

The Green Slope

Thing 1 and I successfully managed getting on and off the chairlift without shutting it down. At the top, she shot down the mountain straight downhill. I tried to follow her. She fell off to the side where it was grassy. I headed towards her and fell once my skis hit the grass and mud. I straightened up but my skis took me into the wheel of the near-by snow-making machine. (which wasn’t turned on). 

The chairlift was right above and people shouted, “Take your skis off. It will be easier.” About the third time I heard this, I yelled back,”I know. I know. I’m just laughing so hard I can’t focus on getting them off!” Thing 1 took pictures of me trying to get around this big wheel. After the stress of getting to the mountain, we enjoyed laughing about this.

Once we got untangled, we headed to the base. I realized she and I both needed a real lesson too. The $25 fee for a one-hour group lesson was well worth the price.

Ski Lesson

For the group ski lesson, they divided us into groups of 8. Our teacher’s name was Alex and he was great. He taught us different ways to stop – the pie wedge and the better way – going sideways and even a bit uphill. After practicing, he took us on the bunny slope. Then, he took us to the front of the line for the chairlift and we did the Crossover and Freestyle slope piece by piece. Both Thing 1 and Thing 2 fell, but he showed them how to get up. I regained my confidence once I practiced going down the mountain side to side. The lesson ended and we felt ready to ski.

The Blue Slope

Tired and exhausted, Thing 1 choose to sit down and rest. However, I took Thing 2 on the green slope again. She did well. It was getting close to the end of our ski session. I found DH, who had mastered the blue slopes – Upper and Lower Shawneehaw. I decided I was ready to ski the blue slope as well.

As we got on the quad lift, we saw Thing 2 skiing down the green slope. She did well. Our ride was long – about 6 minutes to the top. I loved that there were condos right along the mountain. Personally, I felt relieved people weren’t on their decks watching us as I knew I’d take a few spills on the slope.

The ground was getting slushy and there were several patches of mud/grass in the middle. It was a bit treacherous and I fell many times. By the time we got to Lower Shawneehaw, the slope was better and I enjoyed skiing. However, a few times there were holes in the ice like someone had gone ice fishing.

We got to the bottom, returned our skis and headed to the restaurant for hot chocolate.

It took about an hour to drive to Blowing Rock where we checked in, ate dinner along Main Street and got a good night’s sleep. We opted not to ski the next day as the forecast called for 100% rain. Instead we drove to Asheville and toured the Gingerbread Houses at the Omni Grove Park Inn. Click here to read about it.