Guess who has pictures of T-Line in the summer!

I took these pictures yesterday while several family and friends were at a meeting at the Canaan Valley Lodge and I snuck away for a chairlift ride at Canaan and these T-Line pictures. Unfortunately the meeting ended early and I wasn't able to get that chairlift ride in after all. Although I do plan to return possibly in another week or two with my mountain bike in tow to get several rides up the chairlift with lots and lots of amazing pictures of Herz Mountain.

Does anyone know what the policy is for people wanting to simply walk on the T-Line property and start walking up the trails? Is it possible to say hike up the Salamander and down Lower Almost Heaven or something like that? If so I'll go up again this week with time and do more photography. If John is around, get some tour guiding.

Anyway I stopped by up there and didn't see a soul around outside when I took these pictures. I did step inside to get a summer brochure and spoke with a woman who worked there and we struck up a really nice discussion on how good terrain T-Line is and I told her I was taking photographs for DCSki.com. She piped up and said "Thats the site that I learne the people from Wisp bought Tory Mountain!".

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This looked so weird not seeing that white sheet of snow/ice there with the snowmobiles coming and going. There was an eerily silence to all of that.



Ah, the beautiful Upper White Lightening and Thunderstruck trails. That part of the mountain looks so much different not seeing it frosted white with clouds of snow being blown on the slopes.



One of the various snow guns that sits idly by for another 4 more months. Does that thing stand 3' more taller... no wait there isn't any snow to make it seem shorter.



A eerily silent image of the Woods Hole/Thunderdraft lifts sitting by quietly with my personal favorite Lower Almost Heaven trail in the background.



Lower Thunderstruck with some pretty torn up ground exposing lots of rocks. ATV races I presume??



A scene from a 60's western... no wait it's Timberline in the summer.



Everyone's favorite trail, the Salamander.



John's personal favorite lift of all time... one of which I've never ridden in all the years I've been there because it's never been open *grumbles*. Plus a wide angle shot of the Salamander and other intersecting trails.



Looking directly up the mountain at the Silver Queen Lift along with Upper Almost heaven. Is that Lower White Lightening in the foreground?



Looking at the ghost town.



The last time I saw this was when there was a snowdrift as high as the roof on the ski patrol building with snow as high as the steps on the deck. Alas it's in the upper 70's and sunny.



The Ski-capitol of the Mid-Atlantic silently preparing for a top notch 2005 season...?



"Thunder..." Oh wait I was listening to ACDC. And looking at Upper Thunderstruck.



One of the first images I saw as I pulled into the parking lot.



A 16x zoomed in image of Upper White Lightening and the SilverQueen lift.



A better image of the lift and slopes.



Wide angle shot of the base area and intersecting trails. I keep looking for that massive ditch that is always found along side those trails but I keep forgetting that there isn't any 40" of packed snow available to make ditches.



Last time I looked at this, snow was halfway up the posts on that sign.



The infamous Woods Hole station and trail where I beat the living crap out of myself learning to snowboard. At last count I crashed over 25 times trying to snowboard from that lift to the base lift my first time out.



Another picture of the Woods Hole bunny slope.



And WHY isn't there snow being blown out of that gun?!?



Looks like a place to hike and have a quick sandwhich for lunch at. At least there wouldn't be any kids trying to throw snowballs at me from above. Those things hurt!

In response to your question regarding whether or not you can hike up T-Line property, I was kind of wondering the same thing. I have hiked up/down Salamander (and a few of the others) several times this spring and no one ever said I couldn't, and over memorial day weekend there was a good number of people doing the same thing. I guess they'd have signs posted if it wasn't okay. On memorial day, there was a small patch of snow near the top of salamander, to the side! don't know if there's any left by now, though, I would doubt it.

Nice pictures.

Much of T'lines management policy can be summed up as benign neglect. I like it that way. I have several times climbed or skinned to ski it after the season was closed. We were discrete; parked further up the condo road past the base area, went up Salamander & the Drop to find snow and did laps on the spring corn in the sun. We were seen by a few hikers who seemed to think it was cool. Never saw any employees but if we had, and they had asked us to leave, we would have done so politely. When the resort is not running you need to have a backcountry perspective. If anything goes wrong you are on your own, so be conservative, hiking or skiing.

I am pretty sure that buddy Jeff and I made T'line's last turns of the '03 season on Apr. 27. There was a good patch of corn snow on the steep top part of the Drop, about 200 vertical feet worth. At that time I posted a story with pics on the Telemark Tips forum but it is gone now.

Nice pictures. They made my day.

If you hike up Sally past OTW to the first big turn (not the wiggle but the first turn coming down from the summit), you will see paths through the woods. Enter the woods and you will see a clearning and a Forest Service sign. This is the trailhead to two of the nicest trails on the Dolly Sods--BREATHED MOUNTAIN and STONECOAL. ENJOY.

BTW, if you want to give people an idea of Timberline's size as a mountain, an excellent place to take some pictures is the Wildlife Refuge lot off of Courtland RD just past CV Storage. Another good place is from the far side of Spruce Island lake but that is Old Timberline property and not open to the public.

Wow I loved the photos! There is something about the mountains that on a spiritual sense can add completeness. They are so much better than boring Central Florida. It's all flat and cow pasture! One more month and I'll be in the hills of Gainesville. I'm on my way to the mountains!

My main concern was the slopes being open to hikers to just walk onto the property and take a leisuerly stroll without having an employee see me, call security or invite me off without an invitation back to the T-Line property again. If so I'll gladly hike up winterset, or the Salamanader and even hike some of those blues to sit and get some good shots.