SKIING AN EMPTY WHITEFACE MOUNTAIN
The first Monday of the ski season is in the books! As expected, Whiteface was pretty empty today, but I did manage to meet up with Wild Bill for some early December turns. It was Wild Bill’s first day out on the mountain this season.
Before I dive into the day, I just want to say that I recognize all my posts so far this season are from Whiteface, but that will be changing soon. Jay Peak opened this past weekend, Sugarbush opens on Dec. 4 and Smuggler’s Notch opens on the 5th, so I’m planning to visit some other ski areas that I have passes to soon. I made a post about this earlier in the fall, but, just as a reminder, I have a Jay Peak season pass, an Ikon Base Pass, a Smuggler’s Notch Bash Badge and an Epic Multi-Day Pass.
While I can ski at other mountains during the work week, I typically just go to Whiteface because it’s closest. I work 4 AM to noon, so I got to the mountain at 1 PM today, which is my usual start time during the work week. I always ski until close and try to get on the Face Lift for one last run in the final 2-3 minutes of the day. Typically, when I get to the mountain after work, it’s starting to get scraped off and that was the case today in some spots, but as per usual the edges were still in play.
Today they were spinning the gondola, Face Lift and the Summit Quad. Like yesterday, Essex was the first thing I skied and it was terrific. I’d say it skied just a bit better yesterday, but overall it had some of the best snow on the mountain today. Generally speaking, everything once again skied well above the Legacy Lodge. There’s really not much to note except that there are whales on Excelsior and around the connector trails at the bottom of Excelsior and Lower Northway. I chose to ski over them, but you can also ski around them and mostly avoid them.
Yesterday the mountain finally became skiable from top to bottom by way of Boreen to Bobcat and Porcupine Pass. Today they opened up Brookside so you could ski Boreen to Brookside and down to the base. They are still making snow on these runs and the snow was somewhat sticky, so I was always a bit cautious each time I went to the base. While skiable, the bottom of Brookside to the Face Lift and the gondola was very rocky so I took my skis off and walked it, but Wild Bill skied right up to the gondola with no issues.
The snow guns continue to roar across the mountain laying down snow on trails such as Victoria, around the Legacy Lodge, Easy Street, Boreen, Brookside and a bunch of stuff in the Bear Den area. If all goes well, we should be skiing Victoria by the end of this week, which is awesome and I’m looking forward to it.
Talk to you tomorrow,
Lincoln