Whiteface Conditions (2014-2015)

Freezing cloud. Snow stopped. If we get some snow tonight out well be awesome. Not certain we are going to get any. 2 great powder days. Could use another foot.

Did they really get the 7" and 14" they reported between the two nights Fri/Sat?

I'd guess 14 was the Saturday and Sunday combo

It was really good this morning.  Empire and CS glades were really nice.  Then the freezing Fog started about 1pm and seeing became a huge problem.  I'm not sure if it's going to leave a crusty layer in the snow.  Another foot or two will really set us up great

Can't tell if it's nuking right now or just low cloud cover/fog?? Nothin shows up on the radar..

looks like freezing fog from the trees

Nice Scotty! And nice to see WF back on page one of The Conditions forum too.

Since my pass is not good this week at WF I have been checking conditions. Anyone know why Hoyts has been closed the past 2-3 days or why LOB is also closed? I was there last Thursday and Hoyts and LOb were both excellent.

I have been wondering about Hoyt's myself.

A lot of trails are not open today, including Lookout Below, Lower Sky, Upper Northway, Upper Mac....and with the coverage they had and the temps what they have been they can't have lost coverage.  Maybe an issue with dangerous wind-buffed hard pack conditions?

The way this issue is solved is by grooming those trails.  Spring bumps and bumps made of freshly fallen snow are fun.  Bumps made of windswept icy death moguls from hell are not.  I guess WF doesn't have the capacity to do nightly grooming on all trails, so it would take a few days to groom all the boilerplate ice out.  

Should be an interesting day tomorrow.  Some snow the last couple of days, lots of wind, lots of wind holds with a lot of the mountain closed today.  Should be lots of wind distributed untouched goodies out there.  Especially, as PowAss would say, in the woods.

"Skiing in the east is so crowded nobody goes anymore" - pow ass

What a morning!  Maybe this should be in trip reports.  Sorry.

We f'ed up, didn't rush to the mountain because they were only reporting 1", still are.  They got more than one inch.  I'd guess 4-6 at mid, with pockets of wind blown of 8-10 inches.  Still, we were on the summit quad at 9:05.  Not first chair, but not far behind.

Upper Northway, while scratchy underneath, had a good 5 inches of powder.  Nice first run.  Over to the summit quad, more powder turns on Cloudspin, wide open trail no less PAss.  My brother even ventured into the untracked across the middle and didn't leave much ptex behind.  The lower section of Sky wasn't open, but the untracked powder turns there were too tempting.  Over to Lookout, great turns to be had on Lookout Below, but untracked getting harder to find.  Next up was Sugar Valley.  They are open from the Deer Valley entrance, which we did yesterday.  We didn't bother with the Deer Valley entrance today.  MC2 can't get mad at me for using the word epic today.  If SV was open from the top you'd find that it HAD two feet of untracked powder.  A 54" pole might sink 48" before it hits bottom.  Conditions couldn't be better.  Scratching my head as to why some things aren't open.  Yes, there is a rocky middle section, but really?  Next we hit up Empire.  Again scratching my head as to why it's not open from the top.  I don't think I've ever seen better conditions on it.  Great coverage on MacKenzie.  

Unfortunately Hoyt's is closed because it's "too icy", and one patroller said it "wind buffed".  I'm usually supportive of most of the decisions patrol makes, but Hoyt's is another "really?"  Skiable expert trails should be open to experts, is all I'm sayin.....

Mountain skied great all afternoon, at least where we were.  Empire, Cloudspin, Skyward, Lookout.  Didn't ski Excelsior once this weekend, but Boreen was in great shape all weekend.  After this afternoon I'm scratching my head even more about Hoyt's being closed.  IMHO it shouldn't be, but what do I know, I'm just a skier.....

How are the slides looking, any chance they get open soon?

They look like they have filled in very nicely.  A couple weeks ago there was still a lot of visible ice, not nearly as much now.  They were skied today, apparently by some guys who came in from the Memorial Highway.  They are skiable, but how close they are to WF opening who knows......

Those tracks on Empire were mine -- I dawn patrolled yesterday as far as Little Whiteface and that was the only ungroomed powder line I could find.

ML, to answer your question: When I got up to the top I ran into Jim Hoyt Jr. on early patrol. He told me that the Slides don't have enough snow (though see previous commenter that obviously someone is willing to ski them) "but the wind can change that overnight."  He confirmed no one tested for stability during the Presidents Day week but that today or tomorrow they will investigate.  I am skiing WF on Wednesday and if the rope drops you'll be the first to know.

Don't want to put anybody on the spot, so I'll just ask a general question.  What does it generally take to deem a trail too dangerous to open?  Theoretically, a trail like Empire right now might have a couple of rocks here or there that could claim a little base material, but is that enough to keep a trail closed?  Skied off icy spots in the middle of something like Excelsior are probably more dangerous than however many rocks you might have encountered on Empire on your dawn patrol.  

Then take something like Lookout Below and Hoyt's, which were closed Saturday.  LB opened Sunday, not Hoyt's.  Word from a patroller and lift staff was that they were "wind buffed" and "too icy".  Yeah, some fresh snow Sat night improved LB in spots, but Sunday it had the same "wind buffed ice" on most of the trail that it had Sat.  That "wind buffed ice", while firm and hard, was very edgeable.  Certainly not boilerplate ice.  I highly suspect that Hoyt's has the exact same hard but edgeable surface, where it's not covered in powder.

I guess, even though those trails can easily and enjoyably be skied right now by any advanced skier, I guess patrol and the mountain have to assume skiers with less than adequate edging technique will find themselves there, unable to hold an edge?  Is it a 'public at large must be protected from themselves' kind of thing?

And no, you don't have to answer any of that.  It was just cathartic for me to say it out loud!

I have no idea what was going on at Whiteface.  

When I've seen these kind of closures at Gore it's usually because you'll lose your edge on the first turn you make, then you'll fall and slide hundreds of feet.

Yeah Harvey, I understand that kind of thing.

Any advanced skier right now will not have any trouble setting and holding an edge on LB, or probably ;) Hoyt's.  Won't even have to work that hard to do it.

I suppose patrol has to assume that some low intermediate or beginner hack is going to go onto any open trail, and they might have a hard time holding their edge.

However, when a very skiable trail, advanced/expert trail, can't be open for advanced/expert skiers for fear of litigation from the blue circle idiot who went on said skiable black diamond trail......well, something is just wrong.

Makes you wanna throw in with PowAss, guess we gotta pad and homogenize everything, and close any trail that presents any threat of danger for anyone!

I'll try and shut up now, because we should respect and honor Patrol's decisions.....