This was our first trip to Whitetail and we enjoyed ourselves. Connie Lawn has an excellent article about Whitetail on the home page so I will stick to my impressions.

This trip started in the parking lot at Wintergreen. Junior Ski Partner and I took one look at the number of cars, considered the amount of terrain open and thought it would just be too crowded. So we punched a few places into the GPS, looked at the ETAs and decided on Whitetail.


When we arrived a few things struck us right off. The drop off area and the parking lot layout were easy to navigate, the Lodge and base area were well thought out and up to date and finally the temperature...it was 52 degrees.

Because 3 lifts converge right at the base area, things looked really bad from a crowd standpoint. There was about a 20 minute wait at the peak of the day to ride the Quad up to the Snowpark and Sidewinder trails. However, the line for the Quad up to Limelight moved pretty quickly.

I skiied the new Sidewinder trail first to get warmed up and I have to say it was very nice. No mashed potatoes, slush or ice...and groomed like a carpet even at 2pm. The top portion has very little pitch, the middle increases a little and there is a little drop towards the bottom with a long run out back to the lifts.

Next I checked out Limelight which runs right under the high speed quad. It looked pretty choppy from the lift but the snow yielded easily and it was fun to ski. I took another ride up and tried out Homerun. It would have been a really fun ride but on this particular day it was in the shade and was very icy until about halfway down where it got a little better.

I played on those slopes and the Snowpark the rest of the day and had a great time. Junior Ski Partner really liked the expert terrain though noted some icy conditions. The Snowpark had plenty of features which she also enjoyed.

The place really cleared out after dark and by 7pm we were taking laps skiing right onto the lifts. By late evening I was appreciating the long lift ride up to the top of Sidewinder and Snowpark. The long ride and the long gentle runs allowed me to keep skiing long after I would have to sit down for the day.

The trip back to Richmond, routed through capital area by trusty GPS, took about 3hrs 20 minutes late at night with no traffic.

All in all, an enjoyable day...the resort was very busy but for some reason, the slopes seemed to swallow most of the crowd. Highly recommended.

Great report, GRK.
PM me sometime when you are heading out for a day or weekend and I will try to catch up with you and the Jr. for some runs.
The Colonel

The new trail is superb, the snow in the late PM was just as good as first run.

GRK pointed out the biggest problem at whitetail, the ice on angle . . . if someone can solve that one . . . :-)

If you get there in the afternoon, you can get a good parking spot and the slopes empty around 2-3 and the lift lines on the highspeed get pretty short.

I am truely glad I live an hour 15 from Whitetail

Very good decision -- I've seen Wintergreen on days like that, and it's just not worth skiing there. Sounds like Whitetail worked out great. I commend your on-the-fly planning!

Not sure what I would do in that situation, but the extra 2-2.5 hours to Silver Creek would have been high on the list. It's a great place to go to escape crowds.