Just a heads up, this post is a little different than your typical Unofficial story.
I had the pleasure of attending the best university in the U.S. of A. – West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV (this is an unbiased fact) (horns-down). WVU’s campus and student housing is situated throughout the mountainous landscape of Appalachia. So much so, the campus built a personal transit system to shuttle students up and down the campus.
As a student, I hiked up and down the hills on a daily basis from my house to class. As a skier, I often wondered, “What would it be like to ski these streets?” I had heard legends of people doing it in the 70’s, but it seemed like you would need a ton of snow to cover the pot-hole filled streets of Morgantown for it to be safe. Fortunately, a storm in late January 2016 made my dream a reality.
I woke up to my phone buzzing with campus alerts.
“WVU FACILITIES CLOSED.”
“CLASSES CANCELLED DUE TO WEATHER.”
I peered out my window and saw 3 ft. of snow blanketing every inch of the surrounding area. I immediately ran to my roommate’s door and pounded on it to wake him up, it was time to go skiing.
The entire town was completely shut down. We lived at the top of one of Morgantown’s hills, and by 10am the plows hadn’t made it anywhere close. We strapped on our boots, clicked into our skis, and set off down Price Street to almost waist-deep pow.
I really can’t explain the feeling of skiing powder next to buried cars and student houses. It was one of those moments in my life that I know I will never be able to replicate. I remember laughing because I just couldn’t believe it was happening. I had hiked up and down Price Street hundreds of times during my time at WVU, and to ski it was just…crazy.
We passed by houses of cheering students on their porches, already beginning the snow day “festivities”. We stopped about halfway down at one of our friend’s houses to grab a cold beverage and say hi. A kid was preparing to snowboard off their roof to a landing he built on top of a dumpster. The town was going mad with snow fever. We continued down to the bottom of Price Street and looked up at what we had skied. It was most likely only 200ft of vertical (if that), and had taken only a couple of minutes, but it was worth every second. Then we began our hike back up.
Hiking up three feet of powder wasn’t ideal, but we saw some pretty interesting things along the way. Students had created a ramp on neighboring Spruce Street and were going full-send with snowboards, skis, and even inflatable mattresses (see video below). We also saw a guy creating a ramp to jib an old railing on N. High Street.
We got back to the house and enjoyed the rest of our snow day like any typical college student. We built our own ramp in our backyard and skied well into the night. My biggest regret is that I didn’t take any pictures or videos along the way. It was just one of those days where I was so caught up in enjoying the moments that I forgot to pull out my phone. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. The only photo of me is the one below. My buddy took this of me after I attempted to grind a picnic table in our backyard after one too many…
And this one of me attempting to high-five my friend who clearly didn’t see me. Never leave a friend hanging…never.
We woke up the next morning to another day of cancelled classes. The roads had *mostly* been cleared so we threw our stuff in the back of the truck and headed out to Wisp Resort in nearby MD. We enjoyed face-shots and basically no lift-lines all day. It was a week to remember.
*All photos and videos in the post are from other people during the snow-day due to my lack of camera work.*