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Whiteface / Lake Placid


RidgeRacer

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Tomorrow at this time JFSkiDan and myself will be skiing what is in my opinion the true beast of the east...Whiteface Mt.

 

It looks like we'll have a few bluebird days on tap with highs in the 40s. The Slides are listed as closed (looks like we missed them by 3 days :banghead) but Cloudspin and Lookout Below are listed as open as of today. The spring bumps on Lookout Below should be choice :drool Stay tuned for complete TR's are photos.

 

And for stoke...

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Edited by PA Ridge Racer
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just ate a brownie from the lookout cafe. riding the clousplitter with dan now with bright sunshine and clear blue skies...just missed the first civilian gondola.

 

Hope the weather holds up for you, we were up there last week with almost springlike conditions by Friday, still good coverage on most of the runs and terrain.

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Just riding the shuttle back to lake placid. We pulled up to the mt arpund 8:20. The clear sky and bright sunshine remained throughout the day. This was JfskiDans first time skiing WF. His face when we pulled into the lot and the mt became visible was priceless.

 

The snow was a packed powder in the morning but loosened up as the day went on. we took our first run off of the gondola...excelsior to past the mid station to the bottom. we flew down as the snow was perfect for speed. we then hit the summit...skyward to switchback to lower cloudspin. cloudspin is a natural snow trail so there were a number of rocks that we needed to dodge. After a leg burning run on mountain run we hit lookout mt.

 

Lookout below had nobody on it. As we were skiing down the wilmington trail a patroller stopped and i asked if lb was opening. He was just on his way over to drop the rope on it...perfect timing. lookout below is a beast of a trail. it makes outer limits seem tame.

 

We made our way back to the summit to ski upper skyward and a bumped up lower skyward. i cut over to blazers bluff where some one yelled "go for it" from the lift...so I did. Blazers is almost like the elevator but a lot narrower. i finished my day with a 3 mile run down wilmington. there was plenty of runs in between which i'm sure Im missing but today was absolutely stellar. Pictures are forthcoming.

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stoke stomper of the day - leaving my gloves at the hotel. but after a visit to the whiteface ski shop i am the proud new owner of a pair of gloves rated for much colder temps than we skied in today. i think when we left the temp was about 50 degrees without a cloud in site. whiteface is quite an experience for me, steep with big vertical. i have not skied anything similar for many years now.

 

the slides where closed, and from the lift you can tell why. they are well skied out, the base is basically ice from waterfalls to begin with. but it would have been nice to ski at least one of them since they are rarely open. there is plenty of terrain here to challenge yourself with even without the slides. look out below is crazy, and i thought upper skyward was a great trail.

 

great day of skiing today.

 

pics:

welcome sign at the top of little whiteface

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whiteface summit from little whiteface

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Dom

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glades

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looking down look out below

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looking up look out below

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me

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blazers bluff

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other random pics

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Edited by JFskiDan
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lol...

 

Day 2 coming up. Dan the man woke me up late this morning with a text message that read that coffee there was waiting for me. Getting ready to leave in a few. It's kinda cloudy and overcast here in town but the sun is supposed to come out and brighten things up like yesterday. The rain is supposed to roll in tomorrow through the weekend :banghead

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Day 2...The empire strikes back.

 

Dan and I got a late start this morning. We started off around 9am and took the clousplitter to little whiteface. We skied approach and were ecstatic to find that upper Empire was open! I immediately hoped in. Empire is about 12 feet wide and steep.

 

On the way down i noticed that cloudsplitter glades were open. I continued skiing empire the whole way. We then hit the summit for a leg burning 3100 vertical.

 

We decided to hit lookout mt. where the stoke levels jumped when we found out that the sugar valley glades were open. sugar valley in the definition of eastern skiing. we got lost in the woods for a solid 20 minutes...more to come.

Edited by PA Ridge Racer
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...continued

 

We spent more time in the trees today than we did on the trails. We made our way up the gondi to little wf where we skied empire to cloudsplitter glades which was epic. Again we got lost amongst tall evergreens for a good 15 minutes. The clousplitter glades were easily the run of the day. They're steep and the trees are tight.

 

We hit the summit again for a run down skyward to blazers bluff to mid mt for lunch. We rode the lookout triple where we skied wilmington. I made my way over to lookout below and Dan hopped back into sugar valley. LB was much softer than yesterday and so much fun to ski. I know I'm missing stuff but we finished with a run off of the gondi to empire back to the cloudsplitter glades to the high country glades to the base.

 

Today was in a word fantastic. It was so much fun to explore the mt's trees and off piste. On one of the gondi rides up a local was telling us how he skis all over the world but whiteface is his favorite which I thought was a pretty big complement.

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its pretty cool when day 2 of skiing can meet or exceed day 1. day 2 at whiteface was awesome. the temperature overnight didnt get quite as cold as the previous night, so our first runs were nice soft snow. the nice folks at whiteface were kind enough to open a few more trails today that were closed yesterday....lower cloudsplitter, empire, cloudsplitter glades, and sugar valley glades. cloudsplitter glades stick out to me as a favorite of mine at whiteface. very expansive area...tight trees and many lines throughout the glade. sugar valley glade was excellent as well, although only the lower area was open today. just the lower area took us at least 15 minutes to ski, i can only imagine what the whole length of the glade is like.

 

at lunch we came up with our hitlist of trails we wanted to finish the day out on, before we ran out of steam. for me it was another run through the glades, Dom wanted another run down look out below. after we reconnected at the face lift, we ran up to the summit to run down upper skyward, and blazers bluff. we rode up the gondola one last time to hit cloudsplitter glades, where we connected with high country glades, which were just as much fun as the other glades.

 

pic-topia

 

cloudsplitter glades

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high country glades

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sugar valley glades

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upper empire

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Edited by JFskiDan
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