Whiteface Conditions

[snoloco]

I'm in the Whiteface Conditions facebook group, which while new this year, now has about 2300 members. I honestly credit that group for bringing a lot of these issues to light, when previously they would've been swept under the rug, or otherwise gone unnoticed. There are firsthand reports posted there almost daily, so they can't hide anymore.

Almost every day, there were trails not groomed properly, bad snowmaking, lifts not running, etc. Not to mention that they were woefully behind on their terrain rollout. It took until President's Weekend to finally open The Wilmington Trail, and Hoyt's was skipped for the 4th year in a row. It was late January before Skyward even open. Going back even further, it took until January to open Approach, Essex, Victoria, and even the green route off Facelift.

They tried to blame the weather, but everyone else had crappy weather too, and they all somehow did better. Case in point, Gore opened everything they did last year, plus Fairview and Moxham, with worse weather than last year. Whiteface really has no excuse for how poorly they performed.

I have a hard time getting my hopes up for anything relating to Whiteface. While Gore and Belleayre saw significant improvements in their operations since I started skiing the ORDA mountains regularly in 2016-2017, nothing seemed to change at Whiteface in the same timeframe. They needed a reset (I'm not even sure I can call it that) like this 7 years ago, but we're only just seeing action taken now.

 

[Brownski]

What causes the really slow snow?

Wrong answers only please

 

[tirolski]

Second that the snow on the lower half was very slow. So slow that I wiped out as it drastically cut my speed and caused me to fall. What causes the really slow snow?

Liquid H2O.
The big problem with slow snow (other than being heavy and making folks tire faster) is going from “faster”(drier) snow to the slower (wetter) “mank" snow. If it’s consistent one way or the other ya can get a feel of it's gravity effects.

Going where folks have recently skied and/or boarded thru the slow stuff is sometimes more consistent than "coming in hot” thru the untouched mank.

Mankology 102.

YMMV depending on what’s underneath the mank.

 

[tirolski]

Wrong answers only please

What say ye, professor Bski?

 

[Harvey]

I'm not a fan of Adirondack Explorer but this is an interesting article https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/whiteface-complaints

So the whistleblower was exposing... bad conditions?

Something seems off.

 

[tirolski]

So the whistleblower was exposing... bad conditions?

Something seems off.

Wasn’t me.
Never saw snow on Whiteface.
I’ve only ever been to Santa’s Workshop as a little kid in the summertime.
The reindeer were nice.

 

[Deez]

bad conditions ? slow roll out of terrain ? uh ..hello ?? has anyone been paying attention to the weather ?? It's been warm and rainy a huge percent of the time. Whiteface is lucky to have what it has and that's all related to snow making. To complain about trail roll out is absolutely ludicrous. They have blown snow every chance they get. I am there every weekend - i can see it and pay attention to the weather.

You might make an argument about the amount of whales on open trails - most times the whales make the trail inoperable because they take up most of the trail. They can also be dangerous because they can be quite steep making for a pretty fast descent right into another whale. Kids love them but i have seen many bite the dust (but bounce back up).
They make snow when they are able because they aren't able very often.

Does Whiteface ever come up against their limit for water from the Ausable ? Do they have to shut off snow making because of it ? Not sure how to find that answer.

 

[Peter Minde]

@Deez You likely won't get that answer from ORDA. Water limits that is. I can attest to that same thing, Mt van Ho was slow to open the entire World Cup trail system this winter.

Mt van Hoevenberg received the same amount of natural snow as neighboring Cascade. But somehow they weren't able to do much with the legacy trails. Meanwhile, until the recent meltdown, Cascade kept their trails going with a fraction of the resources available to the Ho.

 

[westcoastben]

Does Whiteface ever come up against their limit for water from the Ausable ? Do they have to shut off snow making because of it ?

I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I shared a chair earlier this season with a patroller at Gore who has a place up at WF - told me that they can’t pull from the creek/river after Presidents Day week. This could easily be debunked by anybody who skis there regularly and has seen the guns firing beyond that point.

 

[Peter Minde]

I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I shared a chair earlier this season with a patroller at Gore who has a place up at WF and said that they can’t pull from the creek/river after Presidents Day week. This could easily be debunked by anybody who skis there regularly and has seen the guns firing beyond that point.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Mt van Hoevenberg. I know and respect several people who work there. When I moved up here, my local friends were like, now yer gonna see what's really going on.