<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 3/14/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR> After a very "minimal fun" trip to Gore on 3/11 I woke up Sunday AM to find snowplows banging up and down the street. I decided to grasp the opportunity and head to Whiteface early to see how much snow they got. Considering the way things have been going over the last several weeks conditions had returned to prime mid season winter. Keep in mind what "prime mid season winter" means when considering Whiteface. People in the lodge told me that Saturday was absolutely horrible with nothing but ice everywhere. <BR> <BR>I arrived about 8:30 and found I was able to park fifth car up from the corner on the Kids Kampus access road. I probably could have gotten closer at the latter lodge but I would later find that I made the right choice since lower Boreen was shot and right down to a couple of inches of slush over crusher run mix type gruel. They must have done some serious snowmaking on lower Valley because that was as good as I have ever found it this season. This is the second weekend in a row that they didn't run the Little Whiteface summit chair from mid station thereby forcing people to ski to the bottom every time to catch the gondola. For someone who likes to ski the upper mountain but occasionally wants to stop at the mid station lodge this is a royal pain. <BR> <BR>Most everything was groomed at some time over night but there had been considerable snow continuing after to make for interesting conditions. Lower Skyward and Northway had been left ungroomed and had six or so inches of fresh packy powder with a hard crust on top. The snow stuck very well to everything making for good coverage that didn't blow away easily and covered a lot of the bad spots that had been melting away over the last week. Essex was excellent to start with no ice showing anywhere. Lower Northway, which gets tremendous traffic from intermediates coming down off the gondola, had excellent surface conditions and held up well all day. Usually that gets polished to a glass like icy sheen. Upper Northway was opened a little later in the AM and had the heavy powder under crust on top of icy moguls. This was interesting but reminded me of my recent trip to Hickory in that what looks good to the eye may have hidden dangers not showing underneath. The only thing open off the summit was Skyward from top to bottom and lower Cloudspin that can be accessed off Skyward also. The grooming of the packy fresh snow into the loose frozen granular made for an excellent carving surface everywhere. Even in mid winter under long cold periods these trails get polished and glazed most of the time and it was refreshing not to have to fight ice all day. The summit and a good portion of Little Whiteface remained socked in with clouds making for literal zero visibility in many cases. Fortunately, there was no condensing moisture or freezing rain to glaze goggles to make things any worse. Over on Little Whiteface all open trails were really in excellent condition. I could do Approach to Parkway all the way to the bottom of tower 10 hill on Lower Valley and not hit any ice. This is almost impossible during January and February. <BR> <BR>As I mentioned before, they wouldn't operate the Little Whiteface summit double so most of my runs concentrated on the summit chair early on at over 1800 ft vert. each time. Several times I made full gondola length runs to access upper Northway and Essex since there was no other way to get to them. I also made four stops at mid station for lunch and breaks and went to the bottom to access the gondola each time. Every full length gondola run racks up almost 2500' each time. Several times I did full top to bottom runs to, again; access the trails I wanted on Little Whiteface and each of those racked up 3200 plus ft. My knees are killing me right now more than the entire four day swampfest weekend of skiing. <BR> <BR>The season is winding down too fast.
Whiteface, NY 3/12/00
- Thread starter Jimski
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