Whiteface 3/26

[woodi2259]

I was planning to visit clarkson university on saturday and decided to go up a day early for a trip to whiteface on friday. We arrived late thursday night to find very limited snowcover on the ground and light rain. Spent the night in the brookside motor in which was pretty nice and very cheap about 5 minutes from the mountain in upper jay. We got up early ate some cereal and drove over to whiteface. We pulled into the emptiest parking lot I have ever seen at whiteface. I got a half price ticket and headed to the gondola. We then skiied over to the summit quad to find it was not open yet. So we skiied down under the face lift to the gondola which was the only lift currently turning and repeated the same run but found that this time the summit quad was open. We skiied a nice run down paron's which had pretty good cover then returned for a run down skyward which was very soft and one of the pest runs of the day. We returned to the summit againa and headed down cloudspin to find that it had not been skiied much since tuesdays snow and therefore had alot of untracked snow which had turned into crud that i couldn't bust through with my amature telemark skills and lightweight setup. My dad did okay on my midfats when he just sat back and let them ride but i was struggling. To finish off the summit we did a run down the follies which was extremely wet and slusy in some places and if it had gotten colder would have been solid blue ice. Overall the summit had the best conditions of the day with the best snow and only one good shot to the ptex. We did some more of the same runs then decided to get some lunch. After lunch it was time for some more exploring on little whiteface. We took a nice run down upper mackenzie which i was determined to conquer after last years mishap on it with pure ice on the double fall line. Unfortionatly it got me again this year with a nice face plant near the bottom (darn those free heels). After cleaning the snow out of my sunglasses nose hair etc. We skiied down to a nice barespot on the top of lower mackenzie. It was across about 90% of the trail but there was a skiable line to the far left that took only about one turn to get below the bare spot and into some nice snow. We then did a run down U. Northway cutting back to L. Mackenzie again (it really was nice below that bare spot) and a run down U/L wilderness with a few other summit and little whiteface runs thrown in. We caught the gondola just before they started putting the cabins away for the night and got one last run in to the base with several stops to allow my burning quads to rest. The lower mountain was pretty ugly but almost nothing on the mountain got roped. I really respect whiteface for letting the people who are willing to avoid a bare spot have there fun because many areas would have roped trails they had open friday that really after a short bit of ugliness were alot of fun. And even though it's got me 2 years in a row i still think upper mackenzie is one of the best trails on the mountain. I suspect that the last few warm days have really hurt their snow and see that they've dropped about 20 trails since friday theres still some good skiing to be had. The snow was wet heavy and variable but hey i was skiing and thats all that matters. Got a nice racoon sunburn from forgetting the lotion and wearing sunglasses but hey i'll deal with the sunburn for the beautiful day we had. I just wish the season wasn't over here in PA and that i'd have another chance to ski up north but i doubt i'll hit the snow again until next december.