Canaan Valley Resort State Park

State park in Tucker County, West Virginia

Canaan Valley Resort State Park is a state park in the eastern United States, within Canaan Valley in Tucker County, West Virginia. Located in the highest valley east of the Mississippi River, the park contains the second largest inland wetland area in the United States. The valley featured the first commercial ski development in West Virginia.

In 1950 and 1951, members of the Washington Ski Club identified the Canaan Valley side of Cabin Mountain as an opportune place for ski development, based on pilots' reports. Because of its protection from the sun, snow on that side of the mountain often remains until April or later. The club began slope development in the early 1950s, signing a ten year operational lease with local landowners in 1954. Runs extended .25 mile (0 km) down a slope with a vertical drop of 300 feet (91 m). It was the first commercial ski establishment south of the Mason–Dixon line. The ski area closed in 1962. The resort remained open until 1970, when the impending opening of Canaan Valley Resort prompted Barton to go out of business. In 1957, the state of West Virginia made its first land acquisition with an eye toward further developing a ski industry in West Virginia. Sarah Maude Thompson Kaemmerling granted to the state in the 1950s for the formation of a state park

The park has been very successful and several private ski operations have opened nearby and in other parts of the state as well.

Canaan Valley Resort opened for skiing in 1971, on the original site of Weiss Knob Ski Area. It offers 49 ski trails, one terrain park, and a snow tubing area. A chairlift and magic carpet access the resort's beginner skiing area, on the far right of the mountain (facing up the slope). Other than this terrain and one long green trail running from the summit to the resort base, practically all the mountain terrain is marked more difficult or most difficult. These blue and black slopes generally descend the mountain at the same pitch, regardless of their difficulty marking.

On Sunday, February 14, 1988, a mid day explosion and fire in a maintenance building killed three men who were attending an air compressor for the snowmaking system. The building also contained several drums of chemicals.