Closing Weekend at Whiteface

Closing weekend at your favorite resort is like a bad break up: it’s sudden, messy, and keeps you wondering if it could have lasted longer. Once the news was shared that Gore and Belleayre were closing in mid-April, it wouldn’t be long after until Whiteface too would call it quits for the 2024-2025 season.

As good as this winter was, with 189 total inches reported at the Face, spring came early at the mountain, receiving less than a foot of fresh snow in March and nothing more than a dusting in April. At least spring skiing can almost guarantee a good corn harvest.

For closing weekend, Saturday’s weather was forecasted to be cloudy and reach 60 at the base, while Sunday only reaching 45 and sunny, a hard refreeze overnight. My brother and I opted not to ski Saturday for softer turns. We pulled into the main lot at 9am and parked within the second row.

The sky was cloudy and the winds were low, with the temperature already hitting 58 at the base according to my Outback. The website said it was 52 at the summit, but I bet the windchill felt lower than that. It also said there were 3 lifts running with 28 trails, which was more than I expected. Unfortunately, some rain had shown up in the forecast for later in the day, which could actually be fun if it was a warm rain.

As a couple friends, my brother, and I piled into the Cloudsplitter Gondola, we got word from one of the attendants that the summit lift was on a wind hold, so we were going to be stuck lapping the gondola or the Face Lift for the moment. At the top of Little Whiteface, it was obvious that the snow hadn’t had a chance to thaw yet, as the top of Excelsior was an ice sheet.

We took our first lap down Excelsior, which softened up as we descended; it was proper corn snow by the time we reached the top of the Face Lift. We then skied under the chair on Upper Valley into Lower Valley. Our friend and Dry Hill diehard skier Jason saw a waterfall on the side of the trail and in true spring fashion dunked his head to cool off from the warm temperatures. From there, we meandered down into the park on Bear.

The snow up top was firm and needed time to thaw, while the snow down low was perfect corn, so as we headed towards the Face Lift for our second lap, the lift ops told us the whole resort was just placed on a lightning hold, which I’ve never experienced. At first, we waited at a picnic table right behind the Waffle Cabin since it was nice outside, but soon dark storm clouds rolled in and blanketed the summit.

A light rain began to fall, and, dressed in a t-shirts we decided to head inside and wait it out. At a little after 10, the rain turned to a heavy downpour as we watched through the upper windows of the cafeteria. A burst of lightning lit up the sky, followed by a boom of thunder. I couldn’t believe our misfortune on closing weekend!

After around an hour of waiting and reminiscing about the season, the gondola began to run again and the sun came out so we headed back outside to the gondola. It seemed a good chunk of the “crowd” had left during the storm. There was nobody on the slopes the rest of the day — maybe 50 skiers — so every lift was a walk on.

At the top of the gondola, we were socked in fog as the clouds had now dropped onto the higher parts of the mountain. Although the temperature had dropped slightly during the rainfall, we figured maybe it had also softened up the snow, so we tried our luck with Essex, which had great coverage but unfortunately was a bumpy ice sheet, it felt like skiing on a coral reef. The trails below, Lower Northway and Summit Express were less firm and made for some excellent skiing.

Just after noon, the winds had died down enough to spin the Summit Chair. About halfway up the lift, we again entered the abyss and couldn’t even see the chair ahead of us because the fog was so thick. Once at the top, it was like another world compared to the base of the mountain: the wind was blowing, it was chilly in a t-shirt and the visibility was maybe 15 feet.

Skyward was the only trail open, no surprise since the weekend before Paron’s Run was iffy and The Follies had large patches in it. Looking over the top of the run, Skyward seemed to disappear into an endless pit of snow and fog. As we dropped in, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the snow was really good compared to the trails off of the gondola earlier that morning. It wasn’t quite corn, but soft enough where we weren’t skiing on anything refrozen or icy.

It was eerie. All we could see was our own skis and the snow directly in front of us. Every so often you would hear “SSSSHHHHHHH” from somebody making turns nearby although you had no idea who it was or how close they were. I came across a couple small grass patches as I merged onto Lower Skyward. Even from this point, the snow quality had changed significantly and was now the perfect texture of corn without being too wet like it was at the base.

After avoiding some larger grass patches directly underneath the chair, we all made it to the bottom of the Summit Quad and decided it was good enough to give it another go. Again, once near the top, we were shrouded in the same fog except it seemed to drop lower onto the mountain so we didn’t have any views until about halfway down Lower Skyward. During this lap, it began to sleet up high and was raining down low until we came out of the cloud. We decided to take Broadway down to Lower Valley and into the park once again.

To dry off and lose the goosebumps from the previous lap, we took the Face Lift a couple times to lap Upper/Lower Valley and the park, which at the time was the most crowded trail with skiers testing their rail-sliding abilities. The time was now 1:30 and our friend Kyle had to head out soon, so we decided to check out a part of the resort we hadn’t yet ventured to: Mountain Run. The top of the gondola was still within the mercy of the clouds but seemed to have softened up.

This time, we headed down and across Approach to the top of our line, which was still shrouded in fog. The trail skied much like Skyward except it had small moguls here and there with a couple small patches of grass to avoid (or ski if you’re like us). Once at the bottom near Legacy Lodge, looking back up we could see Mountain Run was the only trail with good coverage off of Little Whiteface while the rest were either bare or had very large sections of grass. Once again, we headed towards the bottom and through the park.

After a few more laps off the Face Lift, we considered our final lap of the season. We head back up the Summit Quad to ski the largest vertical drop in the Northeast. Not much had changed as far as conditions go, with the visibility being almost nothing but relying on the sounds of other skier’s turns to know where people were as we descended Skyward, one of our favorite’s this season.

It was a sad feeling knowing I would have to wait over 7 months until I’d be back on this trail again. And we had it all to ourselves as we turned and burned down Lower Skyward, this time down Boreen and onto Brookside, which had great snow and coverage the whole way down.

The time was now 2:30 and the temperature was 63. The base of the resort had mud patches, large puddles, flowing streams, or all of the above. There may still be a few turns remaining for us in the backcountry, TBD. Then, it’s on to the hobbies that distract us from the summer’s heat until we see our first snowflake in the fall.