If you ski back country why are you worried about the slides. If they open them more its only a chance for people that have no business skiing them to be in there. I've almost killed myself avoiding tourists doing snowplows in the slides, I'm not even exaggerating. If you know where to go and when to go in the back country do it. The bottom line is that Whiteface has to plan for the worst skier out there. It's no easy task to get an injured person out of the slides. Yes I think it would be great if conditions permitted and they could open them more. But there's a lot of factors that we don't even know about that contribute to opening the slides. It doesn't really come down to the Mtn management, its up to the ski patrol and what they think is safe.