A FIRM DAY AT WHITEFACE WITH PILES OF POWDER
It was kind of difficult to come up with a title for today’s post, but I think what I ended up on perfectly describes what today was like at Whiteface: It was firm with piles of powder. Following yesterday’s strong winds, the mountain picked up a few inches of natural overnight. It was a cold afternoon with temperatures ranging from the single digits to the teens. There was also a breeze that not only helped make things extra chilly, but also caused the snow to blow around on trails, exposing the firms spots I mentioned before.
Looking down Upper Skyward.
Whiteface was spinning all of the lifts that normally spin, except the Little Whiteface Double. They had more than 70 runs open, including Lower McKenzie via On Ramp, which was open for the first time this season with natural snow. The mountain was empty and there were no lines for any lifts.
Looking up at the sun on Upper Skyward.
Lower Skyward.
Upper Northway.
Lower McKenzie.
As mentioned, conditions were generally pretty firm on most runs, at least up high. Keep in mind I did ski in the afternoon so conditions may have been better in the morning. Thanks to blowing snow and the snow overnight, there were piles of powder on a lot of the steeper runs. Anytime you hit a firm patch of snow, there’d be a pile of powder somewhere shortly after. This made the skiing a lot more fun than if it’d just been firm everywhere!
Upper Thruway.
Trails that skied particularly poorly were Upper Thruway, Essex, Upper Northway and Victoria. These runs were all icy. Upper Thruway was the worst of the group. Essex and Upper Northway were both covered in icy whales. I skied Yellow Dot once today and the coverage on that was good. The Wilmington Trail was covered in small balls of ice at one point, which was interesting, but aside from that it was generally firm.
Snowmaking on Hoyt’s High.
Snowmaking on Lookout Below.
The lookout above Lookout Below.
In the last few days, they’ve started making snow on Hoyt’s High, which hasn’t had snow made on it in years. Today they fired the guns up on its neighbor Lookout Below. This means that, for the first time since I started skiing at Whiteface 5 seasons ago, all three trails on Lookout Mountain will have had snow made on them.
Tomorrow looks like it could be be a nice little powder day. I kind of want to ski at Smuggler’s Notch, but I’m off next week and I’ll be skiing at a bunch of places so I may hold off on that for now. I probably won’t make my decision until I get off work.
Never Quit Skiing,
Lincoln