winterplace ski resort

The family and I visited Winterplace in early February for a one day skiing trip. This was the first skiing experience for my son and daughter. So, they participated in the group lesson in the morning. It was well coordinated and helped my son learn to ski immediately. Although he stayed on the beginners slope all day, he repeatedly skied the hill without falling. My daughter spent most of her first lesson being helped up from the snow. She decided to take a second group lesson, this time she was helping others up. By the end of the day, she did not want to come in from the slopes. Both had a great day and positive first skiing experience. I have been skiing for 30+ years and find Winterplace an enjoyable place to visit. The easy and intermediate slopes are enjoyable. The expert slopes are short, but provide a moderate challenge, especially the mogul run. Prices are as one would expect in the Mid Atlantic area. We were with a group and the rental/ticket combination with group lessons was very reasonable.

We had a great time at Winterplace.Staff was friendly and not crowded. I would definitely recommend this place among other options that are available. plenty of runs to choose from.In the past we have gone tubing. good runs for that as well.

So my first time here. Didn't come for the skiing (don't ski), and although you can take lessons we opted for tubingThe tubing center is located in a different area from the main lodge, but still in the overall park. Ski lifts take you to the same area if you're skiing. Both the main and tubing lodge is reasonably large with decent food available, if not a little on the expensive side. The tubing part has two escalator type ramps that take you got the top, and 8 lanes coming down. It was quite fun. They ran from 1-5, or till 10, but it got way too cold after dark. Tuber traffic was managed effectively, waiting very little to get in the ramp to the top All in all a great day of fun

It was a great place for my wife to learn how to ski! The lines were short and the slopes were not crowded!

No lift lines. Good weather. Decent snow. Friendly staff. Decent prices in bar. One of my favorite winter spots!

My 9 and 6 year old Florida boys had never seen snow. We picked Winterplace because it was a relatively close drive (12 hours) and only wanted to go for a couple days. We opted to put them in the Ski Wee program. I let the boys pick Snowboarding classes over Skiing classes. (I grew up in maine, grew up skiing, never tried snowboarding) I wish when I reserved them for their class, the person on the phone would've been a little more forthcoming with recommending skiing over snowboarding for young beginners. They had fun "trying" for hours, but never really got to do much - as well as the rest of their snowboarding class. The skiers meanwhile were all over the beginner slopes doing just fine. Next time I'll know - skiing for beginners when you only have a day or two. Snowboarding when you have more time/older/etc. Oh well. The boys loved the tubing. Wish they had just an area for the kids to play in the snow, even if was another fee to enter. My kids wanted to have a snowball fight, build a snowman, etc. you know - all those regular things northerners get to do, that the Florida kids never get to experience. I guess next time we'll know to keep driving north until there is natural snow everywhere :-)

Not a place for beginning skiers. Many of the beginner slopes require walking or skiing uphill. Bathrooms are filthy, as is the eating area. We were there for 10 hours, and the tables were NEVER wiped.

Me and my dad went last winter and it was amazing the people at the reception were very nice and they had great food and hot cocoa and they also had coffee . The tubes were full of air which made them go faster and I flipped of mine I will go back it was a amazing experience !!!!

The skiing was great and the weather was kind. Its a perfect way to spend time with the family and make fun of the lids.

Winterplace was a wonderful place to snowtube, ski and snowboard for our family. Everyone loved it. The place was nice and the lines moved as fast as they could but the staff were very careful to make sure skis, snowboards and boots fit each individual. Most definitely will go back.

I'll review this relative to the other places I've skied in the general area: Wintergreen, Sugar and Ober Gatlinburg. My family (me, wife and two young kids) went to Ghent Friday night, stayed at the local Skyline Resort, which is right outside Winterplace (you could almost walk there) the night before and got to Winterplace at about 8:15 AM on Saturday. We skied until about 5:00 PM and went back just for tubing on Sunday. The kids were in the ski school Saturday morning.The Positives:Easy Access - It's only about a mile off I-77 and we were able to drive right up to the rental offices/lodge and park there. There are changing rooms and pay lockers available but we just stowed our gear in our car and went to it as needed. There's a separate parking lot with a shuttle bus for the tubing area, which is also where one of the lodges/restaurants is located. Generally it's easy to get there and get around once you're there.Lift Ticket Purchase & Gear Rental Process - We bought our discounted lift tickets and equipment online beforehand, but even if we hadn't the process still would have been relatively short. We had lift tickets, boots and skis, etc. in about 20 minutes tops. There IS a Ski Barn shop in town where you can get rentals if you like but we didn't use it. Our kids' equipment rentals were included with their ski school package.Night Skiing: A full-day lift ticket is valid until 10:00 PM. We didn't use it because we had two small kids and were tired but I liked the fact that we could have skied until 10:00 if we wanted to.Ski School: We dropped off our two kids (ages 5 and 6) at the "Ski Wees" school for a half-day's lesson at about 8:45 after getting our gear. We signed them up ahead of time over the phone and I'd recommend you do that. You can just show up at the school with no gear and the staff will outfit the kids with whatever they need - you don't have to rent their skis from the "regular" rental office. The full-day lesson includes a lunch break. Even with the half-day lesson the kids can keep their gear and valid lift tickets and ski until 10:00 PM. We liked the school and the kids learned a lot. The two bunny slopes had carpet lifts and had an appropriate grade and were nice and wide. The second of the two has some mild terrain features which people can use to practice tricks, etc., but these didn't make it dangerous. These two slopes are slightly separated from the lodge and school offices and getting there can be tiresome for little kids but the positive is that the areas don't get a lot of traffic from other skiers so the low-level learners have a safe place to do their thing. (I've seen other ski resorts where all the traffic gets dumped right into the bunny slope and it's just not safe for people trying to learn - just too many people going through.) I can't speak to adult classes but I would not hesitate to send my kids to the Ski Wees school again.Staff - Everyone was helpful, at worst cordial and at best friendly. No bad attitudes that I saw.Restaurants: There are at least three: the two in the two lodges (bottom and mid-slope) and the smaller one in its own building next to the main lodge at the bottom. All three serve canned beer and there's also a real bar in the main lodge but I didn't go into that. All three restaurants serve more or less the same food, which was just adequate - not bad but not great. They do have pre-made salads and veggie burgers in addition to regular burgers, fried food, etc. We never had a problem getting a table for four, even at peak hours. I don't feel like we had to wait an inordinate amount of time to make it through the checkout lines. It was not cheap but I didn't feel like I got ripped off. I believe they do allow you to bring in your own food to the outside eating areas. The dining areas were reasonably clean - not great, but acceptable. I think they do have live music at the main lodge but I didn't see any while we were there.Restrooms: They were reasonably clean - OK considering how many people probably use them.Lift Lines/Crowds: The friendly staff did a good job of keeping the lifts and rider traffic moving, filling up extra seats with single riders. Even at peak times on Saturday the longest we ever had to wait was about 10 minutes (only one time), and many times I skied down and got right on a lift, waiting only about a minute. One lift stopped for a few minutes while we were up in the chair but in general they did a good job keeping them moving. I didn't see any long stoppages. I likewise never felt too crowded, even at peak times.Accommodations: We were able to stay at the aforementioned Skyline Resort, right outside Winterplace. Its strong points are that it's (obviously) close, a good value (we paid $89 for a room with two double beds, including continental breakfast), and the staff is courteous and helpful. The rooms in the back have a nice view of the lake and are quieter but less convenient than the front rooms, which face the parking lot. Winterplace does have some slopeside accommodations but I don't know much about them. They also partner with The Resort at Glade Springs, about 8 miles away. I spoke to a woman who stayed there and she liked it - said they have a shuttle and tons of amenities - but I can't speak to it personally. The town of Beckley, 10 minutes to the north, reportedly has many more options for places to eat and stay, but we wanted to stay really close to be able to get to Winterplace as early as possible on Saturday.Tubing: We went tubing on Sunday morning. I think it was $30/person for unlimited tubing from 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM. (They do offer 2-hour tubing sessions as add-ons to regular ski lift tickets for $14 IIRC.) We went to the parking area for tubing, separate from the main one, walked 5 minutes (there's also a shuttle) to the mid-slope lodge, which is next to the tubing area, walked right in, bought our tickets with no line and went right out to the tubing area - super fast and easy. I have read accounts of long lines but for us at first there were NO lines and then as it got a bit busier the staff started routing people through the "maze" of ropes and managing the lines a bit, but we never had to wait more than 5 minutes from the time we entered the line to getting on the carpet lift. The tubing lanes ran a bit slow because it was warm on Sunday (highs in the 50's) and the snow was getting a bit slushy, but it was OK for small kids and still fun for adults. They also have a little tubing bunny slope for really little kids. My daughter is 5 and I had to take her on that bunny slope about ten times before she was willing to go down the "real" tubing runs, which she then loved. So we had good experience with tubing. I contrast this with tubing at other places we've been to where you have to reserve a certain block of time and the tickets run out, or you have to physically show up at the crack of dawn to buy the tickets. This was much more relaxed and an overall better experience. It DID look busier at the tubing area on Saturday while we were skiing but our experience on Sunday AM was great.The Neutrals and Negatives:Slopes/Snow Conditions: Winterplace does a good job of using the existing space, crisscrossing and interweaving many trails so skiers of varying levels can go on which ever ones they like and still meet up at the same place. The slope conditions were "OK" on a cold (30's in the early morning) but not super cold day - good in the morning but of course a little chewed up in the afternoon as it got warmer (in the 40's). There was very little ice except early in heavily trafficked areas, and there was still powder in places even at the end of the afternoon, after it had been sunny all day and above freezing for much of it. Having said that, it was pretty wet snow, and the slopes all ran a little slow for my tastes. I'm not an expert skier but most of the the blue runs would be greens at many other places and some of the greens were quasi-bunny slope easy. Also, there are some parts of the various runs which connect to other trails/runs which are relatively flat and you need to have a lot of speed built up to traverse them. Not so hard if you have poles but it looked tedious for some boarders, who got a little stuck. So although there ARE 3-4 black diamond runs, if you're looking for super-hard skiing or boarding Winterplace might be too easy for you. As an intermediate skier, for me personally it was OK and I think it will be really good for my kids when they raise their skill level enough to try something more challenging than the bunny slopes. Again I would note that I never felt that the slopes were overcrowded, even mid-day Saturday.The Lifts Themselves: Although the lift lines were short and the lifts only stopped once while I was riding, the lifts themselves were slow. There are no high-speed lifts at Winterplace. Again, I think the staff did a good job managing this by keeping the flow of riders moving efficiently, so the overall experience was OK, but if a high-sped quad is a must for you then you might look elsewhere.Atmosphere/Ambiance: Winterplace is a bit spartan. There's no "ski-village" and the lodges are OK but the overall effect is somewhat bare-bones. That's fine for me. I think if you have some sort of faux-Alpine village you're gonna pay extra for that, and I'd prefer not to. So for me it was acceptable but if you're looking for a stylish place with a lot of ambiance, and/or great après-ski, you might look elsewhere. The town of Ghent, where we stayed, is small and there's really not much there. The town of Beckley is 10 miles to the north and is supposed to have a lot more lodging and dining options but we didn't go there. Also, a lot of the guys working Winterplace, both at the rentals area and the lifts, including tubing, were using chewing tobacco and spitting into their plastic water bottles, which is pretty gross, but it wouldn't in itself prevent me from going back. Conclusion:Winterplace is located just a bit over 3 hours from where I live in the Triangle area of North Carolina, making it just barely the closest ski place to me, edging out Wintergreen, Sugar, Beech and Appalachian, which all are about 3.5 hours away. It's roughly comparable in size to most of the ski places in the area, other than Snowshoe (also in WV), which is much bigger but also 2.5 hours further away from me. To my eye it doesn't have super great ambiance, or much après-ski to speak of, but is convenient to get to and easily manageable. The ski school was good for my kids and I'd put them in it again. The snow conditions were OK and comparable to other ski areas in the same general area (Southeastern US). The terrain seemed generally easier than at other ski areas I've been to but there were still plenty of places that challenged me as an intermediate skier. The tubing was fun and better-run than at other places I've been to. I think the friendly staff does a good job of keeping things running smoothly, but management really ought to prohibit the use of chewing tobacco by customer-facing staff. Overall I enjoyed my trip to Winterplace and would go again.

Came to snow tube today with 2 adults and 2 kids. Waited inside for tickets 25 minutes. We got outside and saw a ticket hut with no line !!! Is this done so customers don't see the 20 minute cattle chute line for the magic carpet ? No one was at the top to manage the lanes!!!

Fun weekend!!! Great snow, well groomed both days. Crowded on Saturday, but resort had crowd control personnel at the lifts, so lines kept moving. Friendly people! Hope to return some day.

I visited Winterplace with a group of Girl Scouts and the staff were very nice and accommodating. The slopes were great for beginners and the ski instruction staff were very helpful. My 8 y.o. was skiing on her own after her first level 1 ski school. I liked that you could repeat ski school if you felt the need. The guys working the ski lifts were nice and patient and did not mind to assist when needed. The snow tubing slopes were a lot of fun too. They have a shuttle driver to take you from the ski area to the tubing area so you don't have to walk which was nice. The ski resort was well marked from the interstate as well. Some of the younger employees working the ski boot rental area seemed less than enthused to assist, but other than that, it was a lot of fun. The only problem I encountered were the lockers. They are a bit small and cost $1 every single time you need to get into them (so don't forget your gloves in there!). Also if you want to take a ski break and go tubing, you have to put your ski boots in a locker...and they barely fit. There is no other way to check the boots so you don't have to be re-sized.

Great place to visit to take kids snow tubing and it won't cost you an arm and a leg. Be sure to visit during the 5-10pm time slot as it is a lot less crowded