The moment every Whiteface skier waits for each winter finally arrived today: Skyward opened. Skyward is long, steep and it was used for the women’s downhill during the 1980 winter games. On top of Upper and Lower Skyward opening, Niagara also opened, as did Blazer’s Bluff, which has been filling with wind-blown snow all week. At one point, there was even a snow gun pretty close to its headwall aiding in that process. I skied with Wild Bill this afternoon and we did multiple different runs down Skyward, making sure we hit all the newly opened trails.

Despite it being the Friday before a holiday weekend, the mountain wasn’t too busy this afternoon. We never waited long for the gondola and there was no wait for the Summit Quad. They were spinning all the lifts that usually spin, except the Little Whiteface Double. There were 64 runs open, but with Skyward in play, I never made it to any of the black diamond terrain off Little Whiteface. Every time we rode the gondola, we seemed to just end up back at the Summit Quad after skiing Excelsior or Victoria.

The entrance to Skyward was gnarly and fun. You had to cut through two snowmaking piles, and both of them still had guns running on top of them, so you couldn’t see much, and when you popped out on the other side, it was go time. They were still making snow on Upper Skyward, Lower Skyward and Niagara, and all of these trails were ungroomed and covered in whales. There tended to be one side of the run that was better than the other. Today, the better side for all these runs was skiers left, except the top part of Lower Skyward. I seemed to always come down that on the right side. The snow on all this terrain was great. It was a little heavy at times, but it was soft and forgiving. Since the runs weren’t groomed, there were areas with bumps.

As mentioned, Blazer’s Bluff opened today with probably the best coverage I’ve ever seen on it. Wild Bill had never skied it before, so I made sure that today was the day. The entrance to this trail is very steep, but really it’s not too bad once you get that first turn or two out of the way. While the upper part of the run had plenty of snow on it, the lower part and its run out were thin cover and I found it to be more challenging dodging the rocks in this area than skiing through the steep part up top!

Skyward and Niagara weren’t the only places where there were whales today. Victoria had a couple and Boreen was covered in them. Aside from Skyward and Niagara, the only other place I remember seeing snow being made was on Victoria.

I’m not sure if I’m skiing tomorrow, but if I do it will likely be at Clinton County, New York’s greatest vertical ski area.

- Lincoln

SKIING SKYWARD ON ITS OPENING DAY AT WHITEFACE

LAPPING THE T-BAR AT BEARTOWN SKI AREA

Day 50 of my ski season