Whiteface Early Season Terrain/Lifts

Time for some armchair ski area management to kill time between classes.

I've always wondered why Whiteface doesn't open the LWF chair till almost Christmas, even when they have opened more terrain in its vicinity.  It seems like even after they've reached the mountain run area, that chair still doesn't run till later.

Opening with Excelsior-Valley-Fox makes the most sense, and usually they just run the gondola on opening day to serve the full run.  After that, they move on to cover Essex and Lower Northway, and then add the Facelift.  Not sure whether they open more lower mountain terrain or move into the mtn run area after that.  

Either way, I find it kind of weird that they open the Facelift before the LWF chair, especially when upper mountain terrain is expanded first.  It forces everyone to go to the bottom every run, and that means more people on the likely thin coverage down there.  I'd most likely add the LWF chair after adding a second upper mountain run, but not run the Facelift until later.

I would open the lifts in this order every year starting on or before Thanksgiving and hopefully finishing at Christmas:  Gondola, LWF, Facelift, Mixing Bowl/Bear, Freeway, Kids Kampus, Summit, Lookout.

Sno
They don't open LWF until Mt run is blown.  To run that chair you have to staff the mid station and have snow on the top of the ramp even if the run is not open. Other wise your skis would get ripped up at mid.

That makes sense, but I've seen that lift open with the midstation closed.  It was late season and they lost a lot of snow on the ramp and they were waiting on the staff to rebuild it.  They decided to open the lift, but everyone had to go to the top.  There was a picture from early last year when they ran that lift early season when the gondola was closed for wind.  I think there was some natural snow on the ramp though.

That ramp is not height adjustable which some midstation ramps are to allow them to be lowered when closed so that chairs can safely pass through.  I could see that being useful on the LWF chair as they could run it before Mountain Run was open, and they could also close the midstation on busy weekends to reduce stops and slows, while running the Mountain Run chair right next to it.

It looks like the temps are setting in well for a pattern change after next weekend that will continue into December, so while I'm pissed that I won't get to go before Thanksgiving, it looks like they might have a strong December.