Every organization we link to: local tourism offices, the state and federal agencies that manage the land, the nonprofits and clubs that keep access open, and the universities doing the research.
White Grass Ski Touring Center
The cultural heart of eastern backcountry Nordic skiing — a groomed and ungroomed network climbing the flank of Cabin Mountain from about 3,200 to over 4,000 feet, run out of a converted farmhouse with a soup-and-woodstove lodge culture that people drive four hours for. Telemark, skate, classic and backcountry all coexist here.
Know before you go
- Upper trails hold snow when the valley floor is bare
- Rentals, lessons and a good café on site
- Weekday visits often mean near-empty trails
What you can do here
More than 50 km of groomed and ungroomed trail climbs the flank of Cabin Mountain from around 3,200 feet to over 4,000, with telemark, skate, classic and backcountry all sharing the network. The upper trails hold snow when the valley floor is bare, which is the whole argument for driving here. Rentals and lessons are on site; it has run since 1979.
Local organizations
The same network climbs 800-odd feet up Cabin Mountain, and those upper elevations keep snow after the valley has lost it. Ask at the farmhouse lodge which trails are open to snowshoes so you stay clear of set track. Rentals are on site, and a weekday visit often means near-empty trails.
Local organizations
Guides, gear and lodging near White Grass Ski Touring Center
Place-level placement for operators within range of this trailhead, put-in or crag.
List your business hereNearby in the Potomac Highlands
Dolly Sods Wilderness
A 17,371-acre federally designated wilderness on a plateau largely above 4,000 feet, containing wind-flagged red spruce, heath barrens, sphagnum bog and exposed rock.
Bear Rocks Preserve
The northern edge of the Dolly Sods plateau, owned by The Nature Conservancy: bare Pottsville sandstone slabs, one-sided spruce sculpted by prevailing wind, and blueberry heath dropping east into the Allegheny Front with a 3,000-foot view over the Potomac Highlands.
Spruce Knob
At 4,863 feet, the highest point in West Virginia and the high point of the entire Allegheny range.
Seneca Rocks
A 900-foot fin of near-vertical Tuscarora quartzite standing above the North Fork of the South Branch — the most recognizable rock formation in the eastern United States and the only true summit in the East that can only be reached by technical climbing.
Seneca Creek Backcountry
A network of trails below Spruce Knob following Seneca Creek through spruce and northern hardwood to a series of waterfalls, the largest around 20 feet.
Blackwater Falls State Park
A 57-foot falls where the Blackwater River drops into an eight-mile canyon, its water stained amber by hemlock and spruce tannins.
West Virginia has roughly 1.5 million acres of public land and a handful of places that carry almost all of the attention. The consequence is that a great deal of very good ground sits nearly empty, usually for one of three reasons: nobody has heard of it, the road in is gated or rough, or it is undeveloped and has nothing to advertise. Those are the places below — of them across regions.