Whiteface, NY: 3/5/17

No day of skiing is bad day. But I have had better days. I skied Whiteface on Saturday 3/4. In retrospect, I should have waited until Sunday, or another weekend altogether, but I made plans to go up that day with two other guys, and that was when we were available.  All in all, I do not regret making the trip, and one aspect of it turned out to be very interesting.

I set the alarm for 4 AM, made coffee, we threw our bags in the car, and hit the road by 5:00. I was hoping to get out by 4:30. Traffic was non existent, and I made the trip from Oneonta by 8:30 AM (3.5 hours) which is my record time.  The plan was to meet up with Snoloco, and I conveniently met him near the gondola as I was first arriving. It was BRUTALLY cold. Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures because it was just to painful to take my glove off to reach for my phone.

It was a bluebird day anyhow. It looked a lot warmer than it actually was. According to NOAA weather, it was -10 at the summit, and 4 at the base. I love the Man vs. Nature aspect of the nearly intolerable weather.





As you can see, they had a few snow guns running near the summit as well as a few other areas around the mountain. I was surprised they didn't have more guns running because last year I was there 1st wknd in March, and they were going almost full bore. They also seemed to have more snow down on the main mountain prior to starting up. I was surprised to see Upper Parkway and Essex just about shot. Last year those were buried deep. I guess that's what we get for having Lookout open for a few weeks this year. I still think Whiteface did the right thing too have it open.

The Wilmington Trail still has enough snow on it to open, but for some reason was closed on Sat which was very disappointing. IMO, if the snow is there, it should be used as much as possible and made available to skiers. I emailed WF management about this. Most likely this is because they needed the staff to make snow. This being the case, I would have liked to see a lot more snow being made. IMO not opening WT on a weekend when it has snow on it is the equivalent to Plattekill not opening the double chair when Northface has snow on it, because Laz needs the staff to make snow on the triple side. It would not fly, and I know Laz would not let that happen. Skyward was also not open which was pretty pathetic considering they didn't have anything on Lookout to worry about.

The highlight of the day was when Snoloco took me over to the main snowmaking pumping station at the top of Mixing Bowl.

He basically pointed out the building to me, but That was not good enough. I had to see inside. I walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. I was greeted by an older gentleman who asked if I wanted to come in. Of course I said yes. Sno joined me. I introduced myself and told him my name was Ethan. He immediately quoted my full name, and said he had heard about me and my projects through the internet. He also said "you're the guy who doesn't like Ratnick snow guns." That is somewhat true, but it was funny hearing it coming from him. This man has been there for a long time and was responsible for making snow at the 86 Olympics. I didn't remember his name. The three of us must have talked about snowmaking for a half hour or so, and he let us lurk around on the floor.

 8 air compressors. 4000 CFM a piece.



And the pumps which theoretically put out a max of 6000 GPM, and were running at 540 PSI Saturday. I think the vertical ones are predominately used now.


Like I said, no day at Whiteface is a bad day. I am a whiteface guy at heart.  This was my first time at Whiteface this season and will go down as one of the more exciting ski days this season, but probably my worst skiing experience specifically at Whiteface.

When I got home, I started looking for industry jobs in or near Glens Falls just for shitz and giggles. Sure enough there were a handful available.

Very cool. Those compressors look clean enough to eat off of

That's for sure. The plant was very clean and orderly. The two blue ones are new and more efficient and they are being upgraded over time. One of the things I wanted to see was if there was room for expansion in there. Unfortohnately I don't think there's much more room. But they could probably get rid of the 4 horizontal pumps and add more verical pumps to increase Flow. And by using more Low E guns around the mountain they shouldn't need more air. That's really what it's about nowadays. Increasing water pressure and cutting WAY back on air.

AWESOME. This should be a TR. Front page even. Nice one Ethan.

I think I'm going to copy and paste in a TR

Ethan Snow wrote

I think I'm going to copy and paste in a TR

I can move it.

It was also very windy, and there was a series of mini snow tornadoes going on on Hoyts High.  The joke of the day was "oh look they are making snow on Lookout again." We wanted to get a picture and send it to Coach Z while he was at West with the caption "snowmaking on Lookout today." From the Summit Quad it really looked like snowmaking over there. Coach would have had a horse.

Again, way to cold to get my phone/camera out. Sorry