madskier6
Member
I spent 2 great days skiing with some great guys at Whiteface this past Friday & Saturday, April 4 & 5. I was supposed to go with Greg but his daughter got sick at the last minute so he had to cancel. Fortunately, everything was in place for me to go anyway despite Greg’s absence. I’m so glad I decided to go on the trip.
I arrived in Lake Placid at about 1:30 a.m. Friday morning & got about 4 hours of sleep before I headed to the mountain to meet up with tjf67 & highpeaksdrifter for a tour of Whiteface. The weather forecast called for some snow changing over to rain late in the morning. Fortunately, it stayed all snow on the mountain until about 3:00 when it changed over to sleet & then rain. As HPD said several times during the day, the weather turned out to be a lot better than we expected.
We started off skiing the Gondola & the runs on Little Whiteface. HPD had skied some runs off the Summit early & reported that conditions were a bit firm up there. Did some great runs off the Gondola: Approach, Excelsior, Essex, Wilderness & Mountain Run to name a few. Some of the primo runs (Empire, Upper MacKenzie, Cloudsplitter Glades, 10th Mountain Division Glades) were roped but we hoped they would open up later as conditions softened. Whiteface is a huge mountain with tons of legit vertical. Several runs there are some of the steepest I’ve ever skied & that includes my experiences skiing out West.
We dabbled in some of the open glades, which were a lot of fun: High Country Glades & Silver Glades. We also ducked into the bumps on Lower MacKenzie. We later headed for the Summit Quad as conditions softened a bit with warmer temps & some soft snow falling from the sky. We did Skyward, Paron’s Run, The Follies & Lower Cloudspin. All very fun runs with lots of steep vertical. Unfortunately the Slides were closed & we could barely even see the terrain in there because the summit was so socked in with snow & clouds.
tjf67 & HPD know a lot of good skiers that are regular Whitefacers. We skied with various people throughout the day which was a lot of fun. Those guys know the mountain well & they know how to rip! I skied quite a bit with their friend Matt (face4me over at SkiADK.com) when we separated at various points during the day. Basically, these guys gave me the grand tour of Whiteface & they told me that I pretty much skied every interesting trail & terrain type that Whiteface has to offer. I really enjoyed it & can see myself going back to Whiteface again in the future. I missed the Slides this trip but I definitely want to experience those on a good day. I found out that they opened the Slides on Saturday afternoon after I left for the day & they were open on Sunday. Bad timing, I guess, but what can you do?
On Friday afternoon, I switched to my powder skis since the snow had softened up somewhat. Good choice. Later we hit some of the more interesting off limit terrain such as Cloudsplitter Glades, 10th Mountain Division Glades & all of Empire. It was great to be able to float over the nice soft snow on those trails. I loved the advanced glades at Whiteface. Very interesting terrain & steep in many places. Empire was also quite an experience as I’m told this is one of Whiteface’s signature runs. We definitely enjoyed it. Here are some pics of Empire:
By the end of the day we were quite wet from being snowed on most of the day & then having it change over to sleet & rain for the last hour. After a long, thoroughly enjoyable day (my quads were burning) we retired to the bar for refreshment & relaxation.
I'll post more later about the sunny Spring day we had on Saturday.
I arrived in Lake Placid at about 1:30 a.m. Friday morning & got about 4 hours of sleep before I headed to the mountain to meet up with tjf67 & highpeaksdrifter for a tour of Whiteface. The weather forecast called for some snow changing over to rain late in the morning. Fortunately, it stayed all snow on the mountain until about 3:00 when it changed over to sleet & then rain. As HPD said several times during the day, the weather turned out to be a lot better than we expected.
We started off skiing the Gondola & the runs on Little Whiteface. HPD had skied some runs off the Summit early & reported that conditions were a bit firm up there. Did some great runs off the Gondola: Approach, Excelsior, Essex, Wilderness & Mountain Run to name a few. Some of the primo runs (Empire, Upper MacKenzie, Cloudsplitter Glades, 10th Mountain Division Glades) were roped but we hoped they would open up later as conditions softened. Whiteface is a huge mountain with tons of legit vertical. Several runs there are some of the steepest I’ve ever skied & that includes my experiences skiing out West.
We dabbled in some of the open glades, which were a lot of fun: High Country Glades & Silver Glades. We also ducked into the bumps on Lower MacKenzie. We later headed for the Summit Quad as conditions softened a bit with warmer temps & some soft snow falling from the sky. We did Skyward, Paron’s Run, The Follies & Lower Cloudspin. All very fun runs with lots of steep vertical. Unfortunately the Slides were closed & we could barely even see the terrain in there because the summit was so socked in with snow & clouds.
tjf67 & HPD know a lot of good skiers that are regular Whitefacers. We skied with various people throughout the day which was a lot of fun. Those guys know the mountain well & they know how to rip! I skied quite a bit with their friend Matt (face4me over at SkiADK.com) when we separated at various points during the day. Basically, these guys gave me the grand tour of Whiteface & they told me that I pretty much skied every interesting trail & terrain type that Whiteface has to offer. I really enjoyed it & can see myself going back to Whiteface again in the future. I missed the Slides this trip but I definitely want to experience those on a good day. I found out that they opened the Slides on Saturday afternoon after I left for the day & they were open on Sunday. Bad timing, I guess, but what can you do?
On Friday afternoon, I switched to my powder skis since the snow had softened up somewhat. Good choice. Later we hit some of the more interesting off limit terrain such as Cloudsplitter Glades, 10th Mountain Division Glades & all of Empire. It was great to be able to float over the nice soft snow on those trails. I loved the advanced glades at Whiteface. Very interesting terrain & steep in many places. Empire was also quite an experience as I’m told this is one of Whiteface’s signature runs. We definitely enjoyed it. Here are some pics of Empire:
By the end of the day we were quite wet from being snowed on most of the day & then having it change over to sleet & rain for the last hour. After a long, thoroughly enjoyable day (my quads were burning) we retired to the bar for refreshment & relaxation.
I'll post more later about the sunny Spring day we had on Saturday.
