Friends! We have so much catching up to do. The last few weeks have been full of fun adventures that have taken me from skiing the mountains of West Virginia to running the red rocks of Utah.
Let’s begin with a ski weekend at Winterplace Ski Resort in West Virginia. Finn and I first visited Winterplace two years ago on a press trip – you can read all about it in this post. When I say that he’s been talking about it for two years and asking when we could go back to “the Winterplace,” I’m not exaggerating. Part of his Christmas gift this year was a promise that we’d take another Winterplace trip and go on another cruise in the first part of 2026.
I hoped for an earlier season visit but scheduling conflicts and weather complications had us sneaking in there just one week before they closed for the season for some warm spring condition skiing.
Here’s how the weekend went down!
FRIDAY – TRAVEL DAY
I picked Finn up from school on a Friday afternoon after I wrapped up work for the week. We came home and loaded up the car and hit the road for West Virginia around 4p.
I set the GPS to take us straight to The Dish in Daniels, WV for dinner. We arrived around 7:15p and this one had all of the sillies after sitting at school and in the car all day.
The next stop was our hotel. We stayed in a Fairfield Inn in Beckley, West Virginia. Winterplace is located in Ghent but there’s not much around there in the way of accommodations. It’s easy to stay in Princeton or Beckley and make the 20-25 minute drive in each day to ski.
Finn always thinks it’s extra special to stay in a hotel together, which I love. We got our PJs on and into bed to watch a movie. We cued up Night at the Museum and watched it until our eyes were closing.
SATURDAY – SKI DAY!
We got up and at it on Saturday for a day on the slopes! We arrived at Winterplace around 8:30a to get checked in and gear rented.
The gear rental process is super simple and mostly self-serve with the exception of your actual skis. I got myself all set up and then walked Finn over for a morning of Ski Wee.
SkiWee (and ski explorers) is Winterplace’s program for kid’s ages 5-12. One great perk is that all of your child’s rentals and lift tickets are included in the fee for SkiWee. I put Finn in the morning session so that he could get a quick refresher (this was his fifth time skiing) and so that I could explore the slopes to get a feel for everything and what I’d feel comfortable skiing with him.
Winterplace has 28 trails and 27 of them were open for our visit despite the warm conditions. Luckily, they had received quite a base of natural snow over the winter (including a foot of snow just a few days before our visit) and they have snowmaking abilities. Winterplace also does a great job grooming the runs overnight. So while there was no snow on the ground, the runs were in good shape even if they were a little slushy/slow in places.
I skied some blues and even threw one black in there for good measure and then was ready to grab my boy for an afternoon of mother/son fun. When I picked him up from Ski Wee they were working on their turns on the training hill. The instructors also take them out on the mountain when they are ready to ski runs in small groups.
We skied pretty much nonstop from 12:30-4p with one quick break for lunch. It was almost 60 degrees – I was shedding layers and Finn had a sweaty head under his helmet but it was all good!
I love the excitement that Finn has for skiing. It was so sweet to see his little face light up with pride after the runs as we queued to get back on the lift. I also loved all the QT we got on the lifts to sit and chat.
We stuck to greens for day one and Finn crushed it! We called it a day shortly after 4p but Winterplace does offer night skiing until 9p.
Back at the hotel, Finn took a dip in the pool and played with some other kids for about an hour and then we ordered dinner
There was an Italian restaurant, Pasquales, next to our hotel so I placed a takeout order and walked over to pick it up. We split a pizza and I had a salad. We also had some mini chocolate cupcakes we’d picked up at the grocery. We were both asleep by 9p on Saturday night. I could not keep my eyes open!
SUNDAY – SKI DAY 2 + TRAVEL HOME
We had a little more of a leisurely start to our Sunday. We had breakfast at our hotel and checked out around 10a. We arrived at Winterplace ready for one more day of skiing.
It was a little cooler on Sunday, which was nice. I kept Finn with me all day and he did four different blue runs over the course of the day! He was absolutely over the moon. The vibe at Winterplace is so chill and exceptionally beginner-friendly. The lift operators were all asking Finn about his latest run and cheering him on as he excitedly shared his accomplishments.
Can we talk about the way he loved getting lift “67” haha. Sunday was a chill day for us at Winterplace and there were hardly any crowds at all.
We skied until about 2p and then turned in all of our rentals.
We made a quick stop by the tubing hill on our way out. Winterplace has West Virginia’s largest snow tubing park. There are lots of lanes for tubing and two magic carpets to take you up to the top so you can really maximize your time at the park.
We were in the car by 3:30p and home before 7p. We ate all the snacks on the ride home and talked about how much fun we had at Winterplace. It’s an awesome southern ski destination and I love how easy it is to do a one or two day trip from Charlotte. Winterplace has closed for the season but we’ll certainly be back next year!
QUESTIONS
Do you enjoy skiing? Do your kids ski?
Favorite weekend getaways with your kiddos?
Skiing or snowboarding?
