Whiteface Conditions

Whiteface skiing well, suns out conditions very good.

Not much base depth.  WF is a rainfall away from losing much of its coverage.  I don't know if it's desire or capacity, but there hasn't been much snowmaking this year.  In the long term forecast, it looks like some touch ups will need to be done.  Guns aren't set up on Skyward.  I'd be surprised if that trail opens much before the end of January.  I'd be shocked if Lookout is open at all this year.

Snow being made on Wilmington Trail (according to the web site).  That's before anything is done with Skyward.  Strange.

I would have to guess their is a problem with the snowmaking system.  Need bigger better snow making system!! Pronto

Excellent day at Whiteface today - started off with snow maybe an inch of net total frozen stuff...light rain for a few mins but overall mostly held off.  Great coverage and soft turns...glad we got it today before tmrw.  Definitely better day than anticipated given the forecast.

Anyone recently?

Knee deep in spots yesterday.  By the end of the day it was soft bump, 15' of hard pack, repeat.  Probably good skiing today.

No sign of guns on Skyward.  Something seems off about that.  Was told that they're pushing for the Wilmington Trail to be open next.

Was there Sunday but in a different way324FADD0-CEC4-45A6-A050-1BB14887A417.jpeg

D.B. Cooper wrote

No sign of guns on Skyward.  Something seems off about that.  Was told that they're pushing for the Wilmington Trail to be open next.

I’d really like to know what the deal is with Skyward as well.  My suspicion that is that there has been some huge lack of PM Fup which is preventing it from being blown.  There are wild rumors but nothing solid.  

It made zero sense to blow only half of Wilmington then stop and blow Northway and Mac.  There appears to be no coherent plan.  I was at Sugarloaf for races this past week and they have at least 4 times more open terrain and not a rock to be seen laying on the groomers.

If Skyward isn’t blown right after WT it will tell everyone something is wrong.  If that is the case Hoyt’s better get blown next.

Someone my brother rode the lift with this weekend (no idea who the person was, or if they have a clue) told him that WF has no plans to make snow on Skyward at this point.  There are only a couple of weeks left in the snowmaking season and they are going to focus on Wilmington.

I said I’ll believe that when I see it, but the general lack of snowmaking activity (another person told my other brother that they have to worry about how much water they take out of the river, so they can’t make that much snow) and the lack of open terrain (the best skiing this past weekend was on trails that weren’t open, and Patrol was actively chasing down those who dared to ski the best snow on the mountain, on trails that could have/should have been open [use a thin cover sign!]....probably for fear of lawsuits) just screamed of excuses, and makes me fear its true.  

As for conditions, Saturday was marginal.  At least the crowds weren’t bad for an MLK Chevy Saturday, thanks to the cold.  60% open at this point is kind of sad.  The 11 inches from Wed-Thurs was groomed into an ok edgeable surface that held up most of the day, but it was firm as opposed to soft, and a very noisy (I hate the sound of edges on hardback, everywhere), cold, and generally unpleasant day day of skiing.  Very cold and scratchy ain’t my thing, anymore.

What a difference a day, and 8 inches of snow, makes.  Despite the big crowds, Sunday was a great day, especially early.  Powder turns early turned to gorgeous packed powder midday, that got kind of bad by day’s end, on open trails at least.  The last few runs of the day found soft moguls with ice in between on a lot of trails.  There’s a lot of ice lurking.

Monday was ok.  Place was empty.  The aforementioned soft moguls from Sunday afternoon groomed in nicely, and the skiing surfaces were generally good until mid afternoon, when things got skied off.  All in all it was a good morning in an overall average day.

Hopefully Ullr starts delivering.....

Nice writeup JTG.  I agree with the weekend's review.  

As for snow making- I was told by a reliable source that snow will be blown on Sky.-

the plan was to get Wilmington open by MLK but the rain last weekend wrecked things.

Wilmington is supposed to open on Friday.

Grillman wrote

As for snow making- I was told by a reliable source that snow will be blown on Sky.-

I hope so, and really found it hard to believe they wouldn’t get their signature trail (Sky) opened....but my brother feared WF was figuring Wilmington to be the new signature trail.  

It won’t take much to get Skyward open, I don’t think.  Rumor has it that Cloud to Niagara was skiing great Sat/Sun (I’d never condone ducking a rope and advised my kids against, but someone was getting nice tracks) so despite the lack of snow to date there seems to be hope!

Anybody out today? How does it look?

Just joined the community here after searching for condition reports, and visited Whiteface yesterday, Jan 25 (also new to WF, it was just my 6th time there). Gondola was running at half-speed, which made the line ridiculous, so Face Lift up to mid-station and beyond. Liftee said that one of the gondola motors was broken. Morning conditions were good. All the blacks on Little Whiteface were skiing well, Upper Northway, Mountain Run, and Essex especially. But the summit was in bad shape. Upper Skyward and Cloudspin are nowhere near ready (no snowmaking evidently). In fact, I didn't see any evidence of snowmaking on the entire mountain. Wilmington was closed. The paltry blue trails off the summit were icy as hell. Got slapped by freezing rain but afternoon rain softened up the icy patches until fog descended and made visibility poor. A ski patrol riding up the lift with me said they hadn't been making snow because of some "issues," but didn't elaborate. I asked a ski instructor about it and he said it was due to environmental constraints. Doesn't inspire confidence. On the other hand I was told that they're rebuilding the mid-station lodge this spring. By comparison, I was at Gore on Wednesday and it was sublime -- they're clearly making a huge effort to overcome the snow deficit by blowing as much as they can all over the mountain. I think WF hit a bunch of bad luck this year, but it's still delivering some excellent terrain. That's all I got. I'll report more when I'm up there again.

I was told by multiple people that a hydrant or pipe had issues on Wilmington and that there wasn't enough snow on one section of the trail, above the traverse.

Similarly, I was told that they would be moving to Skyward next.

Upper Northway was trail of the day yesterday.

Check their Instagram story today if you’re wondering about snowmaking.

Edit: and now the Facebook...

bjarmas wrote

Upper Skyward and Cloudspin are nowhere near ready

 This is simply false information.  I'm sure it was well-intenioned but it's wrong.   I can't get into details or sources but to say Cloudspin is "nowhere near ready" is a clear misstatment of fact.

Cadence Lodge wrote

bjarmas wrote

Upper Skyward and Cloudspin are nowhere near ready

 This is simply false information.

Duuuude....what are you talking about?  Not that I’d ever advocate for someone ducking a rope, but a birdie told me (after MLK weekend) that Cloudspin was a shark infested death trap and should be avoided at all costs.  The PTex sacrifices to the mountain are said to be extreme!  People should absolutely 1,000% stay out of there until Patrol deems it safe to be open!!!  Safety first, ya know...

Whiteface skied really well today.  Everything but Lower Mac was superb.  It was nuking some kind of grapple all day, especially above about 3000'.  Anytime you can fly right down the middle of Essex you know it's a good day.   The summit was off the hook. (Even Paron's ) It's just going to get better as the week goes on.  I'd be shocked if Wilmington Trail isn't open this weekend.  It's late January but the mountain is finally starting to round into form.  And although this weekend thing isn't going to be a widespread event, I have a feeling it may produce at elevation in the northern Adirondacks.  

(BTW, Lower Mac was merely excellent.)  

I was there Saturday and Skyward was a rubble field of rocks and bushes. Go ahead and poach it, I don’t care. I was reporting in what was open.