Whiteface Conditions (2011-2012)

photo courtesy Whiteface Mtn

And apparently RonKon skied the toll road.

From Jon Lundin, ORDA public relations coordinator:

Whiteface is Making Snow… Opening Day Slated for Nov. 25

WILMINGTON, N.Y. --- Nine days before the start of the anticipated skiing and riding season at Whiteface Mountain, in Wilmington, N.Y., crews have begun the process of making snow.  Last night, Nov. 16, guns began covering Excelsior, Upper Valley and Lower Valley, laying the base for the Friday, Nov. 25, opening day, weather permitting.

“Last night was the first real opportunity that we’ve had so far to make snow,” said the mountain’s manager Bruce McCulley.  “We were able to get a good start and we’ll continue as long as the weather cooperates.”

Opened gondi midmorning and by 1130 emptied out.   excelsior remained firm great coverage today except base area. overall a great day for nov

it started to firm back up in the shade late in the day - it was cooler than the forecast i think

nice opening day

We skied Whiteface today and it was great.  The weather was really warm, but the snow stayed good all the way until 1pm when we quit.  The gondola quit then too - I don't know why.  CMR and I agreed that our legs just aren't ready for a full day of heavy wet snow.  The kids disagreed.  We skied Gore yesterday, and I have to say that the conditions at Whiteface were much better than at Gore, even with the extra day of melt.  We are so glad that we made the trek up north today.  The nice lunch in Lake Placid and the window shopping afterward were a lot of fun too.

poindexter wrote

 The nice lunch in Lake Placid and the window shopping afterward were a lot of fun too.

Lunch at the Brown Dog is always great.  Shopping..... not so much.  

poindexter wrote

We skied Whiteface today and it was great.  The weather was really warm, but the snow stayed good all the way until 1pm when we quit.  The gondola quit then too - I don't know why.  CMR and I agreed that our legs just aren't ready for a full day of heavy wet snow.  The kids disagreed.  We skied Gore yesterday, and I have to say that the conditions at Whiteface were much better than at Gore, even with the extra day of melt.  We are so glad that we made the trek up north today.

Temps at Gore have been so marginal (meaning so close to being good enough but not quite) that I KNEW Whiteface would have better coverage. The elevation and latitude advantage - the difference between say 22 degrees and 28 degrees is huge.  (For us it's just not practical to make the additional trek, when we've got the whole team.)

I was sore yesterday, but felt really good today.  Another reason to push the season and hit it early.

Glad you guys had a great time up there.

It’s starting to get cold, snow is beginning to fall and it’s beginning to look a lot like winter.  This weekend, prices to ski and ride Whiteface Mountain, in Wilmington, N.Y., are just $58 for adults, $48 for teems and seniors and $38 for juniors.
 
Top-to-bottom skiing and riding on Little Whiteface will be available.  Excelsior, Summit Express, Upper Valley, Lower Valley and Fox will all be open.  In addition, nursery and children’s programs are available and will operate from the Kids Kampus Base Lodge.  Snowsport School lessons will also be available for skiers and riders intermediate level and above. For the most up to date information we urge skiers and riders to check out our daily anticipated conditions report on whiteface.com.

Happy Holidays,
Jon Lundin
ORDA
Public Relations Coordinator

This morning:

"Snowmaking has been challenging, especially down low, last night it cooled off but not until late in the night.  Excelsior is covered well, we have been making on Essex, Lower Northway as the temps allow."

I don't recall seeing guns going today on Essex or Northway - Northway is super rocky and takes ton of snow to get open so that doesn't seem to make much sense

below mid it was really thin and rocky in many spots.  Not the best conditions but it was white (sort of) and you could slide on it (except for the rocks)

much better sunday 12/4 compared to saturday.  They blew more snow over night though an inversion set up early in the morning so the guns went off starting at the top and the last gun in the shade by the gondi was shut off about 9.

The snow was really nice off the gondi down to about the top of the face lift below that it got really sticky I think because they made snow and groomed it before letting it drain and it was warm.

It was much better than i expected today considering the rain we had this week and then a refreeze.  They have done a good job of grooming and blowing.  Even Essex was good but then they closed it late morning to blow snow on it.  Victoria was probably the worst thing i skied today it was icy and was groomed really oddly where there was big chunks of snow boulders on the left side.

The lower mountain was well covered and skier well.  Its supposed to be really cold tonight so they will blow so more nice snow.

One thing that I've noticed is that in past years WF would tend to pound a trail for a whole day or more and then more on.  This year they seem to be blowing stuff for a couple hours and then rotating more often to another trail.  Not sure long term if this is good or bad yet but I think it may be budget related.

From Whiteface:

"We will start blowing on the summit tomorrow… should be open Wednesday, start on Lookout mountain later in the week, hopefully open by the 1st.
 
We will be opening other trails in the meantime…should have Approach,Thruway tomorrow.
 
All together we are looking pretty good….Merry Christmas."

WF staff did an good job of trying to recover but mother nature certainly did not give them much to work with with no reportable new snow and plenty of rain overnight.  1st thing this morning it was firm and semi edgable but after an hour or so it was down right boiler plate ice.  And this was just on the blues and greens.  The blacks were all closed for safety reasons and would not have been skiable except for world cup racers.

By lunch the gondi was closed due to high winds and it was time to call it a day.

Given a few days of blowing and grooming thingss should gradually get better by the weekend.

The skiing was better than i had expected with the rain and warm temps the last couple of days

The groomers did a good job making it skiable on the blues.  The steeps were not as good but Essex and Victoria were much better than after the last rain event.  Parkway / thruway was not open since they are getting that ready for a big race next weekend and it had not been groomed.

We had a lake effect band come in for about 3 hours and it was snowing really heavily from about 10 until 1

1/06/12

Skyward to Niagara opens tomorrow!  Conditions today were stellar.  Tomorrow will be best day of the season so far...  I know that's not saying much but WF picked up 10-inches natural this week and blew tons of snow!  No rain tomorrow just warm.  And to top it off Lucid is playing in the Cloudsplitter Lounge!!  

I don't think that skyward ever did open - you could see a huge section of ice on skyward from the top of the gondi - if it looked like that from a half mile away I'm sure it was not nice up close

Mt Run was open and was pretty nice as was thruway

It did rain for about 2 hours at times fairly hard so once it gets cold on sunday there will be a good deal of moisture in the snow and it will be pretty slick again

don't let the parking lot fool you there was a race with over 200 kids but the skiing and lift lines were not nearly as busy as the parking lot would indicate

as usually Lucid rocked it out

Wilderness from the 1900 road on Sunday followed by Skyward to Niagara.  Off the charts goodness!  

Soft spring snow on Sat and it did rain a bit but not to bad.  Temps dropped overnight and thank God for the WF Snowtribe!!

Wilderness and Sky on man made velvet....  Yeah Buddyyyyyyy

We need Thursday's storm to wiggle to the east....  Please, please!!!

For me the run of the day on Sunday was Mt Run.  They were blasting it with nice dry snow and it was like skiing velvet.  I was on new sticks so i didn't venture over to Wilderness as it did not have as much cover but it was probably good too

You would have been fine on wilderness. No sticks or stones to be found. Even from 2200 road.

Tools not jewels. :)