Canaan Valley Ski Resort — Attraction in Davis

I have come to Canaan Valley Resort in the Winter and now in the Summer. In the Winter, there is an ice skating rink. In the Summer, the outdoor pool is open heated to a lovely 78 degrees with 3" to 5' 6" depths. Year round, there is also an indoor pool and good size hot tub. The pool was about 4'. The saunas were closed used for storage. Where you sign-in with the attendant, there were towels you could borrow. You could also get a key to the gym which has bicycles and treadmills.

There are some lovely sitting areas in the lobby, on the deck, and outside in back of the hotel with wooden gliding chairs area the firepits.

Rooms: All the hotel rooms have a microwave, mini-fridge, and coffee maker with individual Wolfgang Puck round coffee filter packets.

In the pictures (if you start a booking), the King has a sofa while the Queen only has a chair which is same for the Balcony versions.

There is a Queen with Balcony room, but the Queen Junior suite does not have a balcony and has a parking lot, front of the resort view, but it has a sofa and minibar.

We have splurged for the King Suite which has two rooms. A King bedroom with a balcony, desk, mini-fridge, microwave, individual cup coffee maker, and bathroom. The nice, big second room has a gas fireplace, sectional sofa that also is a pull-out bed for the kids or another guest, wooden eating table with four chairs pus an additional leaf in the closet, and a wet bar (sink, microwave, and another refrigerator), and desk. The room has a connecting door if you needed to book another bedroom. The living room wet bar has a full size coffee maker (each filter makes 3 - 4 cups). Black tea is provided for both the living room coffee maker and the individual coffee maker in the bedroom. Each room has separate climate controls which worked well, although I found the bedroom heating to be noisy.

There is shampoo, conditioner, lotion, soap, hair dryer, and an iron/ironing board. Although I liked the pump soap by the sink, I thought the rest of the products were rather cheap. The soap was very drying and made my skin feel tight afterwards. Tip: You may want to bring your own bath products.

Dining: Hickory Dining Room. 2nd floor in the middle building with a lovely view of the outdoor pool, golf course, mountains, and trees. You can get carry out but getting someone to answer the phone is a hit or miss. Breakfast 7 am - 11 am - Good, hearty breakfasts Lunch 11 am - 2 pm. Don't get the coleslaw. It tasted like the mass produced/bulk one and I couldn't eat it. Dinner 5 pm - 9 pm

Seasons Cafe for grab and go food, pizza, ice cream, milkshakes, Starbucks Friday - Thursday 5 pm - 9 pm

Laurel Lounge for appetizers, pizza, wings, etc. Friday - Thursday 5 pm - 9 pm

Activities: Sometimes there are hikes - check on their website under Events Golf Scenic Chair Lift for $10 each way; 2 mile hike back otherwise

Sporting Clay shoots

Arcade / game room - 7:30 am - 10 pm Air hockey table, shooting games, and claw game.

Canaan Valley hikes near-by - maps at the front desk

Nearby Points of Interest In the Davis town, the WVHighland Artisan Gallery (487 William Ave, Davis, WV) is a wonderful place for affordable gifts made by local artists. It is closed on Tuesdays but open other days from 10:30 am - 5 pm. There are several other stores, deli, and restaurant within that area. There are not many parking spaces though. Ignore the Town Hall Garage. It was an old garage and is not a parking garage.

Mountain State Brewing company - bar and can buy beers. Open 5 pm and later but may be earlier.. Also selling pizza earlier.

Farmers Market on Fridays 5 - 8 pm in the open lot area. Only 4 or 5 vendors when I was there, but there can be up to 20 depending.

Riverfront Wood Fired Pizza (290 State Hwy 32, Thomas, WV) - about 20 minutes away. Wonderful pizza! Spaghetti pizza is one of their specialties with delicious sliced meatballs! Indoor and outdoor (back of the building) seating

Blackwater...

First time on the mountain in almost 10 years(skied this area heavily in the early 90s through early 2000s) and almost nothing has changed, which is both good and bad. This place is quickly getting phased out by Timberline, where the new ownership has put in a ton of work and money to make the mountain skiable at almost all times despite warm weather and rain. Meanwhile you can tell Canaan hasn't done much to upgrade anything outside the rental equipment. Only things that I could tell were new were the new carpet lift and beginner trail that ran down to the bunny lift, along with the RFID lift tickets.

It was warm(mid-50s) when I got there and the east coast had just been hit with a ton of rain and it showed. Almost no base anywhere and some of the trails that were open were downright dangerous for anyone that didn't know how to handle ice or bare spots. A couple of the blues up top were open with massive unmarked patches of mud/grass and I heard a few of the Ski Patrol guys up top talking about how several of the trails shouldn't even be open. Went to Timberline the next day and despite them experiencing identical weather conditions, no bare spots and great base all over the mountain, you would think it had been snowing the day before with how solid all their runs were. Gravity was really the only good run open since it had a decent base to it, but that's not going to work for most of your ski crowd I'm afraid. The lifts are the same ones that were there in the early 90s and are pretty slow by today's standards.

Food and pub are adequate, but again haven't changed in over 10 years and it shows. The place could really use some upgraded amenties and upgrades to the snow making capability. The best times I've skied here have been when Dark Side of the Moon and all the glades were open, but that only happens when they get a lot of natural snowfall and I think that area has been open three times in my lifetime. If they could find a way to keep the entire southern side of their mountain open this could be an incredible place to ski, but they need a generous amount of money dumped into it, which I don't think the state of WV is willing to do. As much as I love this area, it's sad to see what has become of Canaan while Timberline flourishes next door. I did hear some rumors from the locals that the Timberline ownership group is trying to buy the ski area from the state so they can upgrade it, so maybe there is some hope.

Lift tickets are cheaper and they at least offer a 4-hour pass, which Timberline does not, so it was fun to just show up at lunch time after driving up from southern WV and hop on the slopes for a couple hours. Overall though if you're going to ski an entire day and are ok dodging crowds, Timberline is...

Negatives: Some individuals at the mountain ski school (for kids) were very rude, upsetting my wife, my daughter, and making me see fire engine red! (I started to type the whole story but it won’t fit) The ski school was very good to my daughter, my daughter got upset bc they upset my wife and me.

A pub employee basically tried to run a lot of customers out of line by saying the cafeteria had the same suppliers and comparable quality food. The pub is made to order and fairly priced, the cafeteria is premade food and more expensive and according to every employee I mentioned this to they are in no way comparable.

Positives: Lisa in the ski school! My wife and I did file a complaint about the ski school and the way my wife and I were treated, she handled it with class and genuine concern, top notch customer service!

Justin who was my daughters instructor! He did amazing with her and was a genuinely good and caring person!

Doug the ski instructor who helped out a first time skier in my group.

Bernie my ski instructor who improved my form and helped my technique before I head out west.

Warren who instructed my wife and despite two quick accidents was able to get her form improved and keep her on the slopes even though she was shook up.

Our server at the pub! Not the same guy who told everyone to go to the cafeteria. He was young and tall and clean shaven, I didn’t get your name or I would have used it. He was slammed and working in restaurants a good portion of my life you did good. The pubs food was delicious by the way! Eat there not the cafeteria.

What showed to me was that those who cared and were concerned and utilized excellent customer service skills changed our experience. So to those that used those skills correctly excellent job you are the sole reason I would ever return.

Side note: Lisa offered me money back and a credit bc of those who didn’t use the proper customer service skills. Because I won’t be back this ski season I declined and since we used a gift card I asked her to put the credit back on and use it to help improve someone else’s experience or to help someone out. I didn’t want the credit to just go unused and thought it would be better if it could be paid forward. After she agreed to do that she then insisted that my wife and I get a lesson to improve our experience, we accepted that graciously. To all those at Canaan and to anyone in the service industry anywhere. These people I named are shining examples of how the proper service completely changes...