Winter Wonderlands: The Best Skiing Near Rockville

Except for the past few days, the weather this winter has been so mild that Rockville residents could continued to enjoy warmer weather outdoor activities.

But with the biting cold, thoughts are finally turning to shushing down the slopes of powdery snow.

There are 20 ski resorts within a four-hour drive of Washington, D.C., with activities ranging from traditional skiing to snowboarding, tubing, sledding and much more.

Carroll Valley, PA's Liberty Mountain is the closest ski spot, just a 1-hour, 35-minute drive from the nation's capital, according to the DCSki website. Liberty offers 16 trails, eight chairlifts and 14 snow tubing lanes to handle 13,400 skiers per hour.

Mercersburg, PA's Whitetail Resort is only 10 minutes farther away, and it recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. Whitetail has 23 trails, a high-speed quad chairlift and a 935-foot vertical.

Virginia's Wintergreen Resort is just under three hours from the area and offers visitors great views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Wintergreen has 26 slopes for experts and beginners alike, plus a half-pipe for snowboarders.

If you head west, Canaan Valley in Davis, WV, may be a good choice. It offers a number of slopes, including some for glade skiing (off-trail skiing, often through wooded areas) as well as snow tubing and airboarding, which is similar to body-boarding in the ocean.

Rockville skiiers even can head south. Sugar Mountain in Banner Elk, NC, is the largest ski resort south of West Virgina, and boasts a 1,200-foot vertical in the resort's 115 acres of skiing and snowboarding trails.