Turning Back Time at Whiteface, NY
By Jim Kenney
My son Vince and I made a visit to Lake Placid, NY in late March 2014 to ski nearby Whiteface Mountain. In so many ways it was like traveling back in time. We pulled into Lake Placid on the evening of March 20th. Earlier in the day we’d been skiing in mild spring conditions at Hunter Mountain 200 miles to the south. While we dined at the Lake Placid Pub and Brewery that night an intense snow squall pummeled scenic Mirror Lake just outside the window. It looked and felt like the calendar had rolled back a month or more to mid-winter.
Mirror Lake and the town of Lake Placid, photo by Jim Kenney
I had skied Whiteface twice before in 1971 and 2000, but it wasn't until this trip that I finally got to see the town of Lake Placid, site of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics. The town was hopping for a weeknight in March and after dinner we took a quick spin down Main Street. Lake Placid is impressive and has the look of a classic old winter resort featuring a main drag lined with many shops, hotels, restaurants, and several Olympic winter sports venues still in regular use. It was the eve of the ECAC college league hockey tournament and team buses and fans were pouring into town. Union College, NY went on to win the ECAC title during that visit to Lake Placid and a few weeks later captured the school's first NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Championship.
The next morning we made the approximately ten mile commute over to Whiteface Mountain Ski Area. When you get close to a spectacular piece of geography like Whiteface Mountain (4865' true summit) you get a feeling of timelessness. No construction or embellishment by us puny humans will ever fully tame this place that rises in singular prominence amidst the magnificent Adirondack High Peaks. In simple terms the trail layout features three "peaks"; from looker's left to right they are Little Whiteface (elevation 3676'), the Whiteface Summit (elevation 4386', highest lift served terrain in the Northeastern US), and Lookout Mountain (elevation 4000'). From the base area (elevation 1220') we started our day by riding the Cloudsplitter Gondola (2432’ vertical) to the summit of Little Whiteface. Our introductory run was on an intermediate trail called Excelsior with a wild mix of six inches of powder from the overnight squalls to sections that were windblown and bony. Welcome to Whiteface.
Cloudsplitter Glades, photo by Jim Kenney
The area had received approximately 18” of new snow about a week before our visit and conditions were generally quite good including many fun glades with plenty of natural snow deep into March. We enjoyed more powdery groomers and a bump run called Approach. While still in the Little Whiteface trail pod we skied the easy 10th Mountain Division Glades while following an instructor giving a tree skiing lesson to a family group. Nearby we also took a more challenging run through the beautiful Cloudsplitter Glades that featured a gnarly, little icefall on the day of our visit.
Then we climbed 1830 vertical feet on the Summit Quad Chair to the highest lift served point at Whiteface where the springtime temperature was a balmy 8 degrees on the morning of March 21st. From there we skied Cloudspin, a run used in 1980 for the start of the Men’s Olympic Downhill course. It was a fairly heroic groomer with a few sections of moguls on the day of our visit. But we were anxious to sample the three peaks of the layout and moved on to Lookout Mountain.
Lookout Below, photo by Jim Kenney
Lookout Mountain is a newer trail pod at Whiteface that opened in 2009 and is served by the Lookout Mountain Triple chair (1560’ vertical). Here we skied a very long blue square groomed run called The Wilmington Trail with great views of Lake Champlain. Taking it from the top of Lookout Mountain to the Whiteface base area provides 2780 vertical feet of scenic cruising. Then we skied a good, steep bump run with excellent snow cover called Lookout Below. It had a spine of snow running down the middle that reminded me of the manmade whales often seen on The Drop trail at Timberline ski area in West Virginia.
The Slides, photo by Jim Kenney
We ate a bag lunch at the mid-mountain Boule’s Bistro. In the afternoon the sky cleared and we were treated to the superb scenery of Lake Placid and distant Adirondack peaks including 5000 footers like Mt. Marcy and Algonquin. On our way back to the summit we got a clear and close-up view of The Slides, an awesome extreme zone at Whiteface featuring some of the burliest ski terrain in the East. This zone was open, but avalanche beacon, probe, and shovel were required to enter, which we did not have. No way you tackle The Slides in mindless tourist mode. These are very steep and icy chutes serrated by sizable cliff bands that are best explored by skilled visitors with the aid of experienced local guides.
Skyward at Whiteface Mountain, photo by Jim Kenney
Later from the summit we skied Skyward, the Women’s Downhill course during the 1980 Olympics. It's maintained as another steep groomer, but not so difficult that a recreational snow rider can't fantasize the clock has rolled back and they’re challenging the legendary Annemarie Moser-Pröll for Olympic Gold. We also rode the steep Freeway lift tucked into the looker's lower left corner of the mountain and joked that this underused double chair from the distant past serves killer terrain and vertical (1458') that would RULE in the mid-Atlantic. Our last run of the day was a memorable cruise from the Whiteface Summit starting on The Follies trail for 3200 vertical feet of gorgeous Lake Placid and Adirondack High Peaks scenery all the way to the foot of the mountain. Whiteface is a winner; past, present, and future.
Whiteface Mountain website: http://www.whiteface.com/
Whiteface trail map: http://www.whiteface.com/files/public/WFTrailMap2014-15.pdf
About Jim
Husband, father and civilian employee of the Department of Navy, Jim Kenney is a D.C. area native and has been skiing recreationally since 1967. Jim’s ski reporting garnered the 2009 West Virginia Division of Tourism’s Stars of the Industry Award for Best Web/Internet/E-Magazine Article.
Great story! I had a dream a couple of nights ago where a resort was built on tuscacora mnt ( Near fort loudon pa) It would have 1,600 vert from sumit to valley floor. I Hope to ski it during the winter. It would rule the mid alt like you said!
Great story about a great mountain. It's been too long since I was there, 15 years at least.
As always, captures the sprit of the place beautifully in words and pictures.
I've heard that they widened the Wilmington trail to make it easier for the intermediates that wander over there. My first time down was under active snow guns in early Jan. We were in the right place when the lift opened that day. They had been blowing for a while so it was essentially ungroomed and 4+ inches deep. The local friends my daughter and I skied with that day had a hard time. That's a long trail when you aren't feeling comfortable. Great views.
First ski day for me will be Whiteface on Nov. 29 since I'm spending Thanksgiving in Lake Placid. Glad it got cold early this season. Whiteface opens for daily ops on Nov. 26 after being open for a couple weekends in Nov.
The cold snap when you were there was good not only for the skiing. I was up there a few days later. My daughter and I caught the last day that the toboggan slide on Mirror Lake was open. We opted to only ski half day at Whiteface in order to do the slide. I'd wanted to do since being a student at North Country School in 1968-70. She's an NCS student now. That's why I'm driving to Lake Placid during ski season for a few years.
http://www.northelba.org/?page=government/park-district/toboggan-chute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCaMVF2d39s
The slide is a re-purposed ski jump set up in the 1960s. A bargain price at $10/adult, $5/child for a 2-hour session. There are toboggans of different sizes. A family with two parents and three younger kids can squeeze onto one toboggan but usually the limit is 4. Can even stack two people lying one on top of another. Old time fun!
