EXCELSIOR HAS FINALLY OPENED AT WHITEFACE MOUNTAIN

Today is the Saturday after Thanksgiving and, with so few ski areas open in the East this weekend, I was expecting today to be a bit busier at Whiteface. I checked the Legacy Lodge webcam this morning and saw some pretty long lines at the Little Whiteface Lift, so I decided to get to the mountain in the early afternoon — and that was a great choice. The mountain had started to clear out by then and there were no lines for any lifts.

Today was a huge day at Whiteface because Excelsior Season (trademark) officially began. Excelsior is one of the main runs at Whiteface. In fact, it may be the most-skied run on the mountain, aside from Boreen, which is a beginner run at the middle part of the mountain. I’m not saying Excelsior is the best run, I’m just saying it sees a lot of traffic. The trail opened in the early afternoon and it was the first thing I skied.

The Little Whiteface Lift was spinning today, alongside the gondola, Face Lift and Summit Quad. It was its first day spinning this season and we were able to reach it by way of Broadway, which also opened today. There was no top-to-bottom skiing. We were uploading on the gondola and either skiing to the Summit Quad or the Little Whiteface Lift. When it was time to head to the base, you had to download on the gondola or the Face Lift.

As mentioned, my first run was on Excelsior. It skied well and the coverage was great, but the snow from the snow guns was sticking to my goggles, so I only took two trips down Excelsior. Visibility up high was low. On Paron’s Run, Lower Northway and Broadway, there were some areas where the snow had been scraped off and it was fairly icy. The edges skied well, though. The Follies, a run off the summit, was open today, but I didn’t ski it at all.

There were a lot of snow guns running up and down the mountain. They were cranking out snow on Essex, Excelsior, the connector trails at the bottom of Excelsior/Lower Northway, Summit Express, Broadway, in front of the Legacy Lodge, Boreen, part of Brookside and probably some other trails, too. It looks like we will be skiing top-to-bottom at Whiteface very soon! (I realize some of you reading this have no idea what these trails are, but for those that do I hope this helps you have an idea of where terrain expansion is about to occur!)

Talk to you tomorrow,

Lincoln