Trying to shred some pow, but lack the time and funds to travel out west? Are you looking for a quick ski trip that will only last one day? Well, look no further! Wintergreen is the perfect place for you. Located in Nelson County, Wintergreen is an easy thirty minute drive from Charlottesville. Wintergreen is widely considered the best option for snow sports within a couple of hours. When reviewing Wintergreen, we considered quality, value, and service.

Don’t have equipment? Wintergreen has a large selection of rental equipment if you do not own your own. It costs only $49 to rent a set of skis and boots for the entire day. The equipment is somewhat nice, but if you feel the urge to get a better set of skis you can upgrade for only $10. You can also get rentals at Freestyle, located in Charlottesville. The prices add up relatively quickly once you start to rent helmets, lockers, and poles. You can get around buying a locker if you want to keep things in your car, but if you need convenient access to your phone or brought a lunch, and don’t want to walk to the parking lot, lockers become very useful. There are many lift tickets that can satisfy whatever urge to ski you have. You can get a four hour half day pass for $70 on the weekend. However, you can double your time skiing for only $10 more. Skiing for only one day at Wintergreen is not worth the price tag it carries. It is usually around $150 on a normal weekend for lift tickets and all the equipment needed. If you are planning on skiing more than a few times season passes are highly recommended and can save you a lot of money. However, they do not give you full access the entire season, and most holidays you cannot ski.

It is very easy to rent skis and buy lift tickets and it usually only takes around 20 minutes before you are out the doors and on the mountain.

Wintergreen has a fair amount of slopes and lifts; 23 slopes in total with 4 lifts, but they only have all of the slopes open for around a month during the peak of the season. The mountain is not very large. It only takes about five minutes to get down. Because of this, Wintergreen is a great spot for beginners. This quality attracts many beginners who tend to get in the way of more experienced skiiers. Even though there are usually a good amount of people there, the lift lines do not take too long (usually around 15 minutes MAX on a very crowded day). After a while, this gets very frustrating because you are waiting for the lift longer than you are skiing.

All in all, Wintergreen is a great spot for skiing, snowboarding, and tubing, considering how close it is and that it is the only place between here and Snowshoe worth going to. The prices for one day of skiing are a little expensive, but if you own your own skis and get season passes it is very easy to ski many times during the winter without spending too much money.