THE SNOW IS GETTING DEEP AT WHITEFACE MOUNTAIN

Today was Day 6 of the ski season and it also marks the start of daily skiing for me, as Whiteface is now open 7 days a week for the season! I don’t ski every day, but I do ski most days. In a given month during the winter, I’m probably skiing 20–25 days, depending on what’s going on with my passes (holidays) and life. The most days I’ve ever skied in a month was last January, when I put in 29 days on the mountain (that was unusual, though!).

It may be a holiday weekend, but I had to work today, so I got to the mountain at 1 p.m., which is my usual time during the week. It was a busy day at Whiteface, but, by the time I arrived, the crowds were thinning out. It snowed several inches on Thanksgiving and there was some snow in the air, so it finally looked like winter.

The last two weekends at Whiteface has seen us uploading and downloading by way of the Face Lift. We’ve been taking the Face Lift up to the Summit Quad and then skiing off the Summit Quad and riding the Face Lift back down to the base of the mountain. Today was overall pretty similar, but the gondola was also spinning. It, however, was unavailable for downloading, so we had to take the Face Lift down. All of the skiable terrain was once again off the Summit Quad.

My ski day started with a ride up the gondola. Even though I’m able to ride it in the summer with my season’s pass, it was my first ride since last ski season and it was nice to be back. While there was some snow at the base of the mountain, it was full on winter at the top of the gondola. I got off, put my skis on and away I went.

My first run was down Excelsior to Lower Northway. The trail was a little busy and it was a little scraped off, but I found plenty of snow on the sides to have fun in. There were some softs bumps in there, too, to mix it up. After my trip down those two runs, I headed up to the Summit Quad. As I rode up to the summit, I couldn’t help but notice how deep the snow was getting beneath the Summit Quad.

As I got to the top of the mountain, visibility dropped and the light became extremely flat. The snow quality was great and the coverage on Paron’s Run was edge to edge, unlike the last two weekends, when there was a narrow spot that was a little rocky. Just like on Excelsior and Lower Northway, I hung onto the edges of Paron’s Run, and it was fantastic.

I lapped Paron’s to Lower Northway for several hours before downloading via the Face Lift. Whiteface is expecting to have top to bottom skiing at some point this weekend, so today may very well have been the last time downloading via the Face Lift. They had snow guns running on several trails, including on part of Essex, the remainder of Excelsior and on a bunch of short connector trails, plus a bunch of trails going to the base of the mountain.

With daily skiing here, check back tomorrow to see how Day 7goes!

-Lincoln