I'll start off with mine being the rarely open(although was open for about a week and a half before the thaw) but amazing lower shortway at Blue Knob. The trail winds through the woods, steep with a fairly consistent pitch, and still the most narrow trail I've ever skied seemingly to be only 6 or 7 feet wide. HOwever it doesn't and probably couldn't have snowmaking so its open on rare occasions. As for a snowmaking trail that is open reguraly probably Shays Revenge at Snowshoe. Even though I am not a fan of Snowshoe they do have two very good trails. Other greats though are Wildcat at Laurel Mountain, Stemboggen at Blue Knob, and Cupp Run at Snowshoe.

uppergunbarel at roundtop was a killer allmost to the point of being unskielble it made lowers sheas look like a peace of cake!!! i had to go over a 6 foot 100 degree drop with no way to land it at the bottom in one place lower shea is nice and the shoe so it upper and cupp and someone there other blacks are ok....(widowmaker and flying eagle and bear claw are nice for a few runs)

Lower shortway is memorably narrow, it's been about a dozen years since I went down it. Does it still have the telephone poles going down the edge too? It's kind of a secret place, I hope a bunch of people don't flock to Blue Knob expecting to try it. Being steep, with natural snow only & about 10 feet wide max, it could only handle about 30 skiers an hour?? Of course, it's rarely open anyway. Stemboggen is pretty funky, I always liked it. There are probably other mid-Atlantic slopes that rival the steepness of Extrovert at BK, but maybe not for as lengthy a pitch. Because you can't see the bottom (the trail goes over a ledge at one point and dips out of view), Extrovert has always had the highest intimidation factor for me in the mid-Atlantic, but I haven't seen Lower Shays at Snowshoe. By the way, I got a view of the Castlerock area at Sugarbush, VT a couple of years ago. I was skiing other parts of Sugarbush; Castlerock was not open yet, but it had 2 or 3 trails about as steep as Extrovert and went on 2 or 3 times longer. It looked pretty hellacious, more so than anything else I've seen in New England, except for maybe the glades stuff off the top of Whiteface, NY. When I'm cruising with my kids I like the longer, easy mid-Atlantic trails like Salamander at Timberline, Mambo Alley at BK and that long, easy one at Canaan Valley.

Folks I will have to go with Shay's Revenge 1st then Cupp 2nd. Lower shay's when it is bumped up is indeed a hair raiser. For constant pitch and length (quad burners) these two stand out. Although Giant Steps and Gunnar at 7 Springs are fun they are not quite long enough to really get cranking. I'm interested in trying some of the other trails being mentioned in here as they sound wonderful as well. Here's to MORE cold weather and a terrific season.

Both Shays Revenge and Extrovert burn your legs out. SHays Revenge, you ski for so long and just when your legs start to get tired the steep moguled part comes. Extrovert, the way they have the snowmaking i tmakes huge car sized moguls, with ten foot drops. Its very steep at the top for so long that by the bottom is starts to flatten a little but your legs feel like Jelly and you still have plenty of monster size moguls still to go. As for Lower Shortway never saw any telephone poles, they've cut out some glades around it however the trail is almost never open but when it is, ohmy. There's a reason they call Blue Knob the Mad River Glen of the mid-atlantic.

Cupp run is a joke...its so easy only like maybe that small part of lower cupp might come close to a black.. i think of cup as a moderate to hard blue...uper sheas is defentaly not a black...that trail is so EASY!!! lower-sheas is defenltly a double black even out west it would be called one........... there are some other nice trails out i never skied blueknob but i plan on doing so soon!! b4 all da sno wmelts

I think you guys put too much emphasis on how hard a trail is. I have just as much fun flying through the crowds of novices on some of the beginner runs at snowshoe as I do on the western territory. I consider trying to avoid people falling all over the place just as challenging plus most of the beginner and intermidates have all kinds of jumps on the side. But when it comes to my favorite trail I gotta show some love to my local mountain and say Paradice at Massanutten is my favorite with Diamond Jim coming in a close second. While they aren't as challenging as a shays they are just as much fun, because both of them have a ton of jumps on them which at high speeds is quite the challenge. Actually I lied the snowboard park is my favorite, but it discriminates against skiers so I figured I'd say the other two.

I think Lower Shortway at BK started out as just a cut through the woods for a power or telephone line, which explains the narrowness. Sometime around '70 they started calling it a ski trail. Besides being narrow and steep, for added difficulty, the darn thing used to have about 5 wooden telephone/power poles along its edge for a stretch.

Anybody ever ski Nosedive, Starr, etc. on the main face at Stowe, VT? They used to be legendary for steepness and narrowness.

To all: How much would you say the vertical drop is from the top to bottom of Extrovert? My guess is about 600'-700' in one straight, steep pop. Maybe sort of like the tough one on the backside of Liberty (Ultra?), if it went on for Liberty's full vertical?

I agree that for the best long, sustained advanced runs in the mid-Atlantic, the 1500' vertical of Cupp & Shays at Snowshoe pretty much speaks for itself.

I've skied Nosedive. Well I wouldn't call it skiing because it was beyond my level 2 years ago. I want to go back.

My favorite slope goes back to my college days on a small mountain in North Carolina called Hawksnest. It's where I first learned to ski. It was the black trail (they really only had 3) and I did it on my first day. Of course, half way down I fell and slid the rest of the way on my back. But I've skied that trail more than any in my life and I call it my favorite.

I heard somewhere, I think at the resort that Extrovert is a total of 800 vertical drop, however its probably only steep for 700. It is similar to upper ultra at liberty but the moguls tend to be, especially later in the season much larger, and there is usually no path where you can ski around the moguls. Not to mention that its much much longer. It always puts fear into my eyes and burn into my legs. I didn't know that their use to be a phone line on shortway it curves alittle to the side at the end but you can definately see an outline where it was straght and there could have been a phone line. I know there use to be an old army base up there and it the phone line may have had somehting to do with that. Anyway all I can say about shortway is that its wild. THe point about a trail not needing to be hard is well taken. On my top few list would be Stemboggen also at Blue KNob, its a realy funky trail with one banked turn after another. THere two ways now to get to it one is to go on the traverse to a large bowl where you can jump in from all different angles, pretty neat. Also you can take an extremely narrow trail called edgset which is at the top of extrovert. Any intermediate skier can ski Stemboggen and is not steep at all. In the interest of including all skiers/snowboarders in this discussion I would like to add that my favorite begginer trail would be innsbruck at Laurel Mouuntain. Its a lesser know natural trail but it should have snowmaking in the next few years. It is narrow but winds itself for atleast a mile and half through the woods down 900 vertical drop, very scenic and pleasent. Other notables would be the long one at Canaan (cant think of its name), and Mambo Alley at Blue knob(2 miles long). Finally I've never skied at Stowe however I have skied some sickly steep and narrow trails at Wildcat in New Hampshire. They went down the lift line for the full 2000 vertical drop. Anyone skied Wildcat? its a lesser known resort however it delivers in terrain. I believe the best in New Hampshire.

Sure you guys have the name right for Nosedive at Stowe? Are you talking about one of the front four of Goat, Starr, National or Liftline?

Speaking of Goat, anyone ever skiied it? Makes Extrovert seem like a bunny slope. Narrower, steeper, double-fall line with sections having more rock and stump cover than snow cover.

Since Blue Knob seems to have many of the most popular trails, anyone up for a ski day at BK this year? Hopefully later in the season when the base is at a maximum. Post here when you think the conditions are good for a BK day trip.

Yeah it's Nosedive. This is cheesy, but I have the pin for the slope and I just doublechecked. It may be part of the 4 your talking about but it is marked as it's own trail.