Whiteface, NY 2/26/00

Jimski · Apr 18, 2000

(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 2/28/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.) After working in the rain most of the week and watching snow disappear faster than chicken wings at a super bowl party I had my doubts about what I would find on the mountain today. First of all the weather forecasters blew it big time when they called for high thirties and mostly cloudy. I was hoping that would indeed happen and leave firm granular conditions and relatively easy turning. Shirley, Shana and I left the house at 8:05 and it was already over 40 and nothing but sun. It stayed mostly sunny all day and we had perfect spring skiing weather and relatively good conditions. It had gotten below freezing last night and the surface was set up nicely early on but deteriorated as the sun got higher and the temperatures along with it. We started out at Kids Kampus and took the slowest triple in the world up to the access trails to cut over to the main mountain. The cable tow wasn't running yet and Shirley didn't want to do the walk to the top of that to cut over since she has one boot that gives her trouble walking. I knew that conditions would get sloppy eventually and wanted to keep her legs fresh as long as possible. She's really jumped on the skiing bandwagon rather seriously since our outing with the Daboll's at Gore recently. Now guys will go all season without getting a haircut or doing laundry, such as washing their ski clothes etc, but from my experience when a lady wants to get her hair done the world must come to a stop. Saturday has always been Shirley's day to get her hair done and she loves her job and won't take time off for anything short of a funeral but this week she amazed me when I came home and found she had taken time off to get her hair done. I asked why and she explained she didn't want anything to interfere with ski time on Saturday. Cool!!! I knew also how skiing can get pretty bad on the lower mountain in the heat so we took our packs up to midstation so we could stay up there for the whole day. We jumped the double up to the top of Little Whiteface and did Excelsior for a warmup. Actually, I did Essex down and over to meet the gals on Excelsior. Essex was firm granular with small bumps that made for easy edging. There were no bare spots anywhere. One redeeming quality of that concrete consistency manmade stuff is that it makes very durable conditions for spring skiing. We continued the full length of Excelsior and headed right for the summit quad. On the way over we had noticed that there was a couple hundred feet of summit sticking up through fair weather clouds that surrounded the rest of the mountain at the higher level. I wanted Shirley and Shana to get a taste of above the clouds skiing with nothing but a sea of white all around below them. That effect had dissipated but the ride up was warm, calm, sunny and with spectacular views. The first thing I noticed at the top was the trail to the slides roped off. As I was standing there a friend who runs the repair service part of Mountain-Boardertown stopped to chat and I asked him if he had been up in them yet. He explained that earlier in the week the administration had sent crews into them and deemed them highly avalanche prone and the slides have not been open at all yet. Now there is major ledge and yellow ice showing and every ride up all day revealed ever increasing "snowball slides" tumbling down. It looks like another year is going to go by without that pleasure. (sigh) We did Peron's all the way to Excelsior. Simply fantastic corn snow carving all the way down. The next run I did Cloudspin and the gals did a copy of the first run. This run was every bit as good as the first and the turning was so sweet that I just made it to the intersection of Excelsior and Lower Cloudspin only a minute before Shana and Shirley came into sight. We all made a trip to midstation for a break and did the double back up. This time I did Upper Northway and met the gals on lower Northway coming around from Excelsior. Upper N'way was just super, super moguls. Much bigger and more pronounced than Essex and full coverage side to side. Fantastic carving, no bare spots and no ice anywhere. Lower N'way was fully covered side to side and harder than Excelsior since it sits in the shadow of the ridge and doesn't get much direct sun. Shirley was showing signs of tiring in the ever softening snow and begged to head for mid around 11:30ish. Shana was just going dynamite on her board in the slush and we headed up the summit one more time for her first ever run down Skyward. We picked our way in off the top where the first 30 to 50 feet was getting down to dirt pretty quick. The steady steep pitch made for excellent carving and the hosed and salt hardened race surface from just a week ago was making the best corn that I think I have ever skied on. Shana's getting off doing those big deep wide carves that snowboards do best and is actually pulling steadily ahead of me although I maintain a straight fall line course. Somewhere in there she falls and starts sliding and picking up even more speed. She slides headfirst on her stomach, then over on her back, tries to spin around and plant her heel edge, starts spinning like a top, does another roll over and starts the procedure all over. Eventually enough slush piles up ahead of her to stop her. Nobody can tell me the top of Skyward isn't steep. I figure I am in the dog house for taking her down there. She is smiling when I catch up and says she loves it. I don't think I'll ever figure out teenage daughters. We finish out the upper part of Skyward and channel over to what's known as Ladies headwall where it cuts back under the chair. Shana rips this flawlessly and gets way ahead of me again and continues down the cut over they built to return to lower Cloudspin for the race designs. I think she did this purposely because this route is flatter and smoother due to the recent races of the Good Will games. I head down lower Skyward for the first time this season as it hadn't ever been open before the games due to not enough snow and sectioning off the trail for the downhill race. This has been pretty much left ungroomed and excellent corn moguls are everywhere. We meet below the base of the quad and head for lunch. While at lunch Shirley explains her knees are hurting her. I get into some schmoosing with the guy at the demo counter and he lets Shirley try some Salomon X-free 9 lites in 152 cm. We do an Excelsior run to start and up the summit and a follies/Peron's run with Excelsior and lower Northway run. The wetness of the surface has seriously increased since the relatively quick lunch break we took with major runoff and puddles at most low areas and flatter sections. Everything is getting seriously bumped up and Shirley is freaking with having to deal with moguls. She is trying her best to appreciate the difference of the skis but it's probably too late with the knee discomfort to tell. At one point some screaming straight bomber knocks a pole plant right out from under her. Some day I might just snap and become a ski slope vigilante. Her smile is slowly becoming a grimace. I convince her to try another summit run and we do straight Peron's to Excelsior and this time cut over to lower Cloudspin. Bad choice on my part as it is heavily moguled like everywhere else and relatively steeper than the previous route. Half way down I encounter a friend I frequently meet at Whiteface and Gore. I try to introduce him to Shirley and she smiles and growls "why do they do this to a perfectly good mountain"? (I think she thinks the groomers are out there making the moguls in between our runs.) He smiles and is probably thinking, pleased to meet you too. I don't know him well enough to know if he is being sarcastic but he encourages her to the fact that summer appears to be coming real fast. I accompany Shirley to midstation where she barely limps in with an "I'm done, can't do any more." I gotta give her an "A" for effort and she did pretty darn well for only her fourth time this year and not enough times in the last 15 years to count on two hands worth of fingers. I glance at my watch and note it is 2:15. I state I will be back after a run or two and head up the double to Northway. It's time to gorge on spring skiing because it might be the last hurrah. Up to the summit for some more Skyward and Cloudspin moguls. I'm getting tired and starting to lose my timing(as if I ever really had any)and leaning on pole plants a little too long. At one point on lower Skyward I over rotate and skid a little in a mogul and try to bail out straight across the next one to get back in rhythm. I'm too tired and the mogul is too soft and I almost land on my nose. I lurch back and hit the next one and now I'm twisting backward. The brain starts flashing "ACL, ACL, warning" so I lurch forward and hit the next one and almost go on my nose again. This happens two more times and I realize I can't pull it out and the left edge of the trail is coming up fast so I take a forward dive to save the inevitable. This is not a great ego builder under a busy quad lift so next time up I head for the more secluded Cloudspin. Taking a deep breath I concentrate on all the lesson pointers and get the hands out in front even over exaggerating perhaps like doing a downhill tuck on racing bike handlebars. Now the poles seem almost way too long for me and my plants become more like rowing a boat then forward straight on hits. I probably look pretty dumb but I am keeping a more continuous rhythm and I start concentrating down hill farther two or three turns ahead. I'm actually getting in the zone and the legs are screaming but with the Elans I find the lungs are not getting ripped out of me like last year at the party on my antique Rossis. At 3:27 I load for the last trip up to the summit, and who knows, maybe the last trip this season. One more trip down Cloudspin with several stops to enjoy the scenery and savor the moment. I realize that in just under two hours I have pounded 10,000 ft of mush moguls at the end of the day and I really didn't want to stop. I firmly believe that, for those of us who might not get in as many trips to the slopes due to where we live and want to maximize our runs when we do, shaped skis will keep you going longer even if they don't help with style or ability. I get to midstation at about 3:50 and find it deserted except for Shirley and Shana waiting concerned for my safety. We now have to navigate lower Boreen and over to Kids Kampus. Shirley gets the skis on and looks terrified at the moguls on the first headwall. Ten minutes later we are slopping through the flatter parts barely moving downhill. Eventually we get over to Kids Kampus and exactly what I mentioned in the morning was occurring. The last 200 ft. or so was a literal swamp of brownish yellow slop that was way more liquid then solid. I am way too tired to take them off to walk and bee line through the lightest discolored section. The end of a totally exhausting day has come and the thought on my mind is when can I do this again. It's a good thing I have Shirley and Shana along or I would have had a hard time finding the van in an almost empty parking lot. A special thanks to Cookie Melrose for the coupon offer for ASC. Everyone can say what they want about them but Killington may be the only one that cranks up the guns again at this time of the year if temperatures drop enough. Jay is bragging that they have ceased for the season and I find it hard to believe that Whiteface will fire them up again. There are major dirt sections in vital traffic areas to access trails that would conceivably last longer at Whiteface. Whiteface doesn't do "some walking required". There are no more major events to draw crowds so it looks like it's roadtrip city to Vermont starting earlier this year than most. As I finish this post it is actually warmer outdoors than in my house. Keep skiing gang and lets hear about what's still out there. I gotta go check my basement for flooding. (sigh)

Whiteface, NY 2/26/00

Jimski

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