Skiing in Canaan Valley began in the winter of 50/51 with a record zero inches of snow in the Washington, DC area. As the story goes, a friend of a Washington Ski Club member, a pilot, reported seeing snow-covered areas in West Virginia, within driving distance of DC. To check this out, a pair of club members headed west in February, 1951 in search of the coveted white stuff. They found a natural bowl on a north facing slope of Cabin Mountain in the south end of Canaan Valley and had to spend two days “testing it”. This bowl, with drifts sometimes over 12 feet, became known as Driftland. Soon after, the first organized skiing with rope tows was initiated by the Washington Ski School and southeastern skiing was born.