Whiteface Ski/Volunteer TR 1/13/12

On Friday 1/13/12 I took off for Whiteface Mtn at 5:30 AM.  Under normal circumstances I would have turned around after a few minutes of driving because the roads were very icy in spots and it was raining off and on but I had volunteered to help out at the NYSEF races being held that day at the mountain.  I wanted to fulfill my promise to help out so I continued on while telling myself that if it got any worse I'd turn around.  Once I made it to the Northway the road was better and I was hoping that any precipitation up there would be snow rather than rain.

I arrived at 7:30 and so far I was wrong.  There was a light steady rain.  At this point I'm imagining the worst:  standing out in the rain for hours during the races and not getting any decent skiing in.  I gathered my stuff together and went to sign in.

By the time I was signed in and had completed my first responsibilities the rain had basically stopped and I headed to the gondola for a few quick runs before the races started.  We passed through the clouds on the way up and looked down on them during the final part of the ride.  Things were pretty clear at the top of the gondola and I took a moment to enjoy the views.  

Then I was off on my first run.  There were a couple of inches of fresh snow on top of firm groomed snow. The run down to Boule's Bistro was fast and fun.  The trails were in great shape.  Below the Bistro though the mountain was socked in and visibility was barely more than an arms length in some places.  I worked my way to the base it started raining again and I took Bear and Freeway up for a quick trip down Mountain Run.  Conditions on the trail were a mix of fresh snow and ice patches  but nothing that couldn't be handled pretty easily.  The toughest part of this was that the clouds/fog were moving up the hill so visibility was tough here too.  Once I reached my work station at the top of the Bear lift I realized that we couldn't even see the race course.  I set up at my work station and waited to see what this was going to be like.

We spent 1 1/2 hrs posting the racers times.  We couldn't see a thing on the course and just listened for the announced times and filled them in.  I felt really bad for the racers as they were complaining about how bad conditions were....over 1/3 of them were DNFs.  Around 11 just before the first round finished the rain suddenly changed over to a steady snow.  I grabbed a quick bite from the lunch spread they put out for us and grabbed my skis for a few runs.

After lunch I took a few runs.  Surface conditions were still great but unfortunately they still hadn't opened the summit and the heavy snow was blowing very had making things a bit uncomfortable.  The best run was by far Approach, Upper Wilderness and Lower Wilderness.  It was time to get back for the second round of races but I was looking forward to repeating that run.

The 2nd round of races took less than an hour because of all the morning's DNFs and the fact that a number of racers didn't stick around for their second runs.  The first round leader turned in another great time and was the day's winner.  Upon completion of the races I said my goodbyes to my co-volunteers and got ready to hit the mountain again.  At this point it was snowing even harder but I was determined to get more runs in.

The mountain had other ideas.  When I reached the base I was disappointed to see that they had shut down the gondola and my shot at repeating the Approach/Wilderness run.  I hoped on Face Lift and figured I'd work my way down to Freeway for another shot at Mountain Run.  Again, the mountain had other ideas.  Over the course of the morning my gloves had gotten soaked and they were frozen stiff as I got off Face Lift.  I was going to tough out a couple more runs but I quickly realized how bad things were.  My fingers were in pain and I've already dealt with toe problems because of the cold so I decided that was it and proceeded to make the best of my last run of the day.


The skiing that I got in, as little as it was, was great.  The toughest thing was the lack of visibility at times and the biggest disappointments were the summit not opening and the gondola shutting down.  As I said in the beginning I wouldn't have gone had it not been for my commitment to the races but once there I made the best of things and enjoyed the skiing.  Being involved with the races was interesting and I met a bunch of nice people.  It's definitely something that I'll do again.

Day 7 is in the books.

Hopefully next time u get better weather. When its in there's no place like Whiteface.

Low visibility was kinda scary when I was there since I didn't know the mountain yet...kinda terrifying really. But I'll abmit, it seems on days when we expect the worst, we get better than we expect! ;-)