Winter Is Coming: A Brief Rundown of Local Ski Resorts

When  many people ask me why I chose to go to Frostburg State, rather than other schools in the University of Maryland System my answer is always the same: snowboarding.  I, like many other students here at FSU, enjoy the pleasures that come from going down a snow covered mountain and cannot wait for the slopes to open up.  At FSU, we are lucky enough to be located within a little more than an hours drive from three great resorts.  The purpose of this post is to give the reader basic information about the following resorts: Wisp Resort, Seven Springs Mountain Resort, and

Wisp Resort:

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Wisp is a personal favorite of mine, and is a very well rounded resort.  It's location just west of FSU makes it easy to reach and great for spontaneous trips when one finds out that a class is canceled.  Wisp has a good mix of trail types, and is great for beginners.  While Wisp does not offer the best skiing on the East Coast, the level of connivence it has to FSU students makes it second to none.

• Wisp is the closest ski resort to FSU, located around 50 minutes away in McHenry, MD, right on Deep Creek Lake.  
• Wisp has 32 trails, which amount to 10.5 miles of skiable terrain.
•  Hours of Operations
• Lift Tickets
• Interactive Trail Map
• Directions

Seven Springs Mountain Resort:

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Seven Springs may possibly be the best skiing on the East Coast south of New York State.  While Seven Springs only has one more trail than Wisp, its wide breadth of trails and vast skiing area set it apart.  Seven Springs is offers a unique type of diversity that many other resorts in the Mid-Atlantic region do not offer.  I would recommend Seven Springs to anyone who is looking to go riding from first to last chair since it is only 47 miles and about an hour away while offering some of the best skiing around.

• 2012-2013 was the 4th consecutive year that TransWorld SNOWboarding readers rated Seven Springs to have the Best Parks and Pipe on the East Cost, as well as in the Top 5 Resorts on the East Coast.
• They have 11 different lifts to maximize the efficiency of skiers getting up the mountain.
•  Trail Map and Mountain Info
• Operation Hours and Lift Ticket Rates
• Directions

Whitetail Mountain Resort:

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Whitetail is a resort that I attend frequently during winter break since it is about midway from my house in Germantown to Frostburg.  Whitetail is in my opinion the lesser of these three, yet is still a quality resort for the Mid-Atlantic region.  Whereas Seven Springs and Wisp's trails tend to be wider with more room to cruise around, Whitetail's trails tend to be much more narrow and steeper on average.  Whitetail is also the furtherest away at 71 miles.

• Whitetail has 23 trails and a Vertical Drop of 935 feet.
• Whitetail has 9 ski lifts to get riders up at a rate of 15,000 skiers/hr
• Winter Resort Map/Info
• Hours and Rates
• Directions

Ski season is approaching rapidly, so get ready. I will be bringing my snowboard up when I get back from the Thanksgiving Holiday to maximize my potential to go snowboarding this season.