Slides?

[SKIdds]

How would you say they are holding up? Will be skiing Saturday and keeping my fingers crossed that they will be open.

[Lbtchnlgs]

Skied 2 and 3 all day. Good coverage on both. looking up at 1 it seemed pretty well skied. 4 was closed on Tues but website said it was open today. It's really hard, saturday is far away. and temps have been high...

Hope for the best, expect the worst. I'm rootin' for ya- I hope you get to ski them, it's a good experience.

[asland]

Great posts that really capture how cool the slides were. I was in the slides last Saturday and Sunday and got to take multiple runs in 1-4. I had a blast. They had deep soft snow, they were steep, they had waterfalls to jump off... The fun was non-stop.

I have skied at whiteface about 40 times this year. Whiteface is where I grew up skiing. I love whiteface and I have had a great time there. It is a steep mountain but this year because of lack of snow and a few freeze thaw cycles we have relied a lot on snowmaking and then lots of grooming. The mountain has been in spectacular shape all things considered and the mountain crew deserves our thanks. But although corduroy is fun to ski on it can be tame.

I got used to tame so the wild rides down the slides were even better. On Saturday, I broke out my bluehouse mavens (139 under foot). These humongous skis helped me surf the deep powder and stomp 10' drops of waterfalls. The keyhole and some other runs in between the main slides kept soft and relatively untracked well into the afternoon. On Sunday, the visibility was much better and although tracked out the snow was nice and soft and skied very well. Towards afternoon it started getting a little sketchy at some points but one could still pick their way through.

Overall, after 36 years of skiing whiteface this was one of my best weekends there.

Now, will the slides be open again this weekend?

matt

[GoofyRider]

better late than never... all the slides were open yesterdy. I didnt go in so i cant give a report, but there were plenty of people in there. Lots of tracks i could see from the lift hiking up above the entry point and getting nice tracks up there. Also saw some people under that giant boulder/cliff feature near the top above slide 3 or 4

[snowman]

We did slide 1 and 3 on Friday , and slide 4 on Saturday. There was a ton of snow, but where the sun was hitting was going fast.
Any one know the last time they were open of a week straight?

[whitefaceman]

i hate to sound like a pessimist...but what are the chances of them being open next weekend and even the weekend after?

[zski]

forecast says 50 degrees and rain on saturday so that will be the end of the slides unless we get the big storm that is now on the 15 day forecast for the weekend after

[Powderqueen]

The Slides at Whiteface aren't open very often. In 2008 I was lucky enough to ski them for the first time. They didn't open last year and they would not have opened this past week if it wasn't for that big dump we got last week.

The Slides are pretty exciting skiing. They are wild and gnarly and they require skiers to use all their skills.

It was a cold morning so we didn't go for a super early start, though we did get on the snow before 10. We packed up lunch and beer in a backpack, so our first run was down to Wilderness to drop off our sustenance at the mid mountain lodge.

At this point I got a text from Chuck who said they just opened the slides, so up we went.



Our first run was Slide 3, since it was still early and this #3 seems to get the most sun. We climbed up and traversed over and came upon a group of young guys, some skiers, some snowboarders clogging up the entrance of Slide 3. One of them couldn't keep his ski on his ski boot. His friends took off and left him as we watched he and his skis and poles slide down the first narrow chutes into Slide 3. Mark offered to help and noticed his 15+ year old skis were set at a DIN of 5. He said he hadn't had them checked in 10 years (when he was probably a child), and now he weighed 200lbs and 6 feet tall. Mark adjusted them and it enabled him to get down.

Once we got past this guy, Slide 3 opened up nicely





Slide 2 is kind of amorphic and has a lot of small trees and tight squeezes.



Mark at the bottom of Slide 2




Slide 1 is the most wide open and has some nice soft snow





Slide 1 also has a huge waterfall, which was quite tricky to maneuver and required mandatory air.





Slide 4 was our favorite. There's a tricky traverse over slides 1, 2 and 3. Slide 4 starts off pretty open with some soft sweet turns.

Mark dropping into slide 4






Half way down it narrows down considerably.

Mark in the narrows.





We pick our way down though tight trees and blind turns and then we come a horizon line.


Slide 4 waterfall





We did 4 runs in the slides between 10:30-2pm and were ready to crack a beer and eat some lunch at Mid Mountain.






After lunch we decided to head over to Lookout Mountain to check out the new terrain.

Wilmington Trail





Lookout Below had big soft bumps and was a lot of fun





This sign made us very sad since it was 3pm when we got there.






The Sugar Valley glade looked pretty awesome and we were greatly disappointed to have missed it.

The day flew by and the lifts close at an early 3:30. The Cloudspin deck was rockin, but we by-passed the deck party for a tailgate with our own beer, snacks and lawn chairs.

Whiteface is an incredible mountain that has kept me challenged ever since I've been there. My best days there have been in the spring when the sun was shining and the temps were over 32. It can be a tough mountain mid-winter and when it snows, usually the wind blows. I think I will likely continue the Whiteface pilgrimage in the spring for years to come.

[asland]

Great times in the slides again this weekend.

Why do the slides close at 2:00? On Saturday, I got tot the top about 1:55 and the slides were already closed. The four ski patrollers that were standing near the gate said they needed the time to sweep it. I know I'm just getting greedy now but it really bumbed me out. I men really - if it takes me 15 minutes tops to get to the bottom of the slides why does it take 2 hours to sweep the mostly wide open slides? This seems like a dumb rule to me.

matt

[Harvey44]

I always thought that the slides were primarily a spring thing - meaning warm temps and corn snow - and the midday hours were to insure soft, skiable conditions.

Have there been many SAR (rescues) in the slides?