Whiteface NY - Mar 30, 2016 - The Late Gift of Corn

First TR in almost 2 years...

What gift is associated with your 20th wedding anniversary? Corn!

My wife and I had planned to spend the day together on this, our 20th wedding anniversary.

Late : Late planning. Initially we would have loved to celebration at our Honeymoon destination: Whistler. As it is often the case with kids, work, school, the logistics, it became to complicated when you don't get your act together until late in the game.

Late : Late change of plans. Instead of a day at the museum and restaurant, we decided to go skiing instead of staying in Ottawa. Forecast was calling for a beautiful sunny day, so we decided “Why Not <em>go skiing on</em> Wednesday”.

Late : Late departure from Ottawa as we waited for the time kids left for school. Plus no need to rush, corn is better served later in the day.

Late : Extremely late to start using my Ski-Ride Foxcard which was worth a couple of hundred dollars Canadian with the current exchange rate. I would generally start using late in the season, but this was really late for a season was less than stellar, many ski areas on the card had already closed for the season (Titus, Middlebury, Bolton, Burke, MRG, Suicide Six).

As I've been saying on the status of the Eastern ski areas this Spring, conditions and winter has definitely less "winterish" by a few degrees and more rain...but it's also colder further north resulting in snow or snowmaking conditions in the Laurentians, the Gatineaus (Ottawa), Quebec City and further East. This was my first ski day south of the St. Lawrence River as the season, the distance and the exchange rate didn't make much sense to go South. Whiteface was reporting 103" (261cm) this season.  I don't recall seeing such a low tide winter since maybe 1980.

The forecast was calling for mostly sunny, with a high near 55F and the “Why Not Wednesday” promotion ($48 lifticket with Coke product) probably explained why they were so many car for a midweek late season day. We got on the Gondola shortly after noon as it was a late start, we proceeded to start with Northway. The run hadn’t softened up and was still firm, so we headed up the Summit Quad for the next few runs. The Follies and Skyward were the only options down, we started with Follies and had a mixed of corn and thin cover. Skyward was much better as it was just softening up. The coverage was great until you reach the Niagara upper pitch where there was only a narrow ribbon of snow in the shade. The coverage was more wall-to-wall on Victoria. We rode on a chair with and bumped into the co-owner of High Peaks Cyclery throughout the afternoon as she was going laps milking as many turns as she could before the end of the season whenever that will be. We had a chat on the season, Adirondack backcountry and the Alps’ Haute Route which she did this Winter.

The front side of Little Whiteface was deserted and awesome, the lower mountain was slushy and relatively crowed for the conditions. Although it was still March, the mountain skied like mid-April. Whiteface was still giving the public some lessons and all the beginners on the hill where staying on the lower mountain. We skied through the park where the snow and slope were better. There was also bumped line on the lower mountain which I had never seen.

Whiteface had official 40 runs 5 lifts open, but none of them included the chairs on Little Whiteface, so it forced us to lap on the Gondola if we wanted to the ski Mountain Run, Wilderness, Upper Upper Parkway and Upper Thruway where the corn was awesome. The snow on some part of the hill was collapsing once you reached Lower Thruway and you could hear the water underneath. The Boule's Deck was busy with people eating and drinking.

Ah yes, the 5 lifts… Summit quad, Gondola, Facelift and…the beginner terrain Mixing Bowl and Bear lifts. As I finish writing this, I’m not sure how Whiteface will look THIS weekend, more than 2 weeks later. Lucky it’s been cold since, but temperatures for the next few days are going to be in the "short-weather" range.

Checkout the link if you want to see the pictures associated with this TR
https://madpatski.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/whiteface-ny-march-30-2016-the-late-gift-of-corn/

This is a great TR and despite the lack of real snow, I am deeply impressed on how much Whiteface blew.

I know today the skiing was $15 and we were tempted to go but, son had exams this week and we figured we would save the playing hooky for better days. Now seeing this report and these photos, I wish we went.

Off to Vermont now - one of the last weekends (if not the last).  Looking forward to making a few turns with you guys next year.

Skiray wrote

This is a great TR and despite the lack of real snow, I am deeply impressed on how much Whiteface blew.

I know today the skiing was $15 and we were tempted to go but, son had exams this week and we figured we would save the playing hooky for better days. Now seeing this report and these photos, I wish we went.

Off to Vermont now - one of the last weekends (if not the last).  Looking forward to making a few turns with you guys next year.

Mind you that was 15 days prior, from what I heard (and expected) many of the connecting parts were thin layer washout on Friday. But you can't get to wrong for $15.