More than just another area to cross off The List, Whiteface is a “must do” for any serious northeast skier. Many sources designate Lake Placid as a premier northeast skiing destination. Ski Magazine ranked Whiteface number one in the eastern United States (and Whiteface won’t let you forget it). Two-time site of the Winter Olympics, Whiteface boasts the biggest vertical drop east of the Rockies and is host to the only on map slide skiing in the east. It looks great as marketing fluff. But how does Whiteface actually stack up?

Quite well, actually. Despite premonitions of disappointment, I tremendously enjoyed all that Whiteface has to offer. The mountain continually surprised me throughout the day. It is more than just a steep groomer paradise and is well billed as a premier destination in the northeast. The vertical drop is truly impressive even accounting for the long run out serviced by the aptly but unfortunately named “Face Lift”.

While top to bottom leg burners can be skied via the two quads, the best policy seems to be lapping the three fixed grip upper mountain lifts and reserving the detachables for moving out of the base area. During our visit, the Little Whiteface Double was off line. But with our attention was focused on the Slides, we primarily skied off the Summit Quad most of the day with occasional excursions on the Cloudsplitter.

Our day got started on Approach to Mountain Run where I opened up huge arcs on the classic racing trail. The snow peeled away like butter. With snow softening already, we decided to head up to the summit where we found almost prime corn on the consistently and steeply pitched Skyward. We then skied a still slightly firm Paron’s Run followed by another delicious rip down Skyward.

With the Slides still closed, we gave the Lookout Triple a spin and were delighted to find the newly cut Wilmington Trail. Many other mountains (*cough* Stowe *cough* Killington *cough*) might have split Wilmington into Upper, Middle, and Lower. But Whiteface retains a single name for this extremely well cut long sidewinder. The Wilmington Trail is a paradox: a new classic. We would later return to Lookout Mountain for a descent down the steep bumper Lookout Below.

It was time for the main event when we spied skiers in the Slides from the Summit Quad. We proceeded to Slide 2 where we found delightful natural snow and fun features. We skirted into the trees around the Slide 1 Waterfall and popped out below it. Slides 1 and 2 reminded me of a slightly less steep but more terrain-feature rich Hillman’s Highway. A delightful jaunt but not enough to truly get the blood racing. That honor would be reserved for Slides 3 and 4.

The entrance to Slide 3 is blood-racing-enticing. Despite the Slide opening up below, 3 begins with a steep and narrow tree filled chute lacking sight lines. This type of terrain is a personal favorite as well as a specialty. Not being able to see what is around the next turn scares most skiers. I thrive on that unknown. My brain shuts off and inspired instinct takes over. Blind turn into blind cliff drop, I find myself too in the moment to think about the turns. They just happen. It is primal sans the savage, poetry hacked out of the snow.

Below me, Harvey stopped short of a terrain feature and quipped “that looks interesting.” A more suggestive invitation does not exist in my vocabulary. The moment seized me and I cut down three bumps and dropped a five foot cliff mid-air turn style. The smooth landing led into more thread-the-needle bumps and trees with sailing jump turns causing delightful laughter. It was as fine a descent as I have had all year.

To say Slide 3 was my favorite would be an understatement. It alone is reason enough to return to Whiteface. But it is not a singular reason. Slide 4 is the most wild of the bunch offering a seriously technical descent.

Despite being more open than Slide 3 higher up, the options are seemingly fewer and more restrictive. Even my most imaginative line choices couldn’t find the perfection of Slide 3. Halfway down Slide 4, a pre-release mid-jump turn dropped me hard and severely torqued my right ankle, nearly resulting in my first ever sled ride (this would be our last Slide run due to another skier requiring a sled from the bottom of Slide 3).

The technicality for Slide 4 is just getting started as the trees funnel into a steep and narrow chute reminiscent of my favorite technical lines. I struggled to keep up with the demanding turns due to my injury. I was dismayed when we came to an ice bulge; what normally would have been a carefree ten foot huck required extreme caution due to my mangled ankle.

The premature closing of the Slides was disappointing but offered an excellent opportunity to better explore Whiteface beneficent with our tour guide (I know not a finer ambassador of mountain good will). Stellar soft bumps were found on MacKenzie and Cloudspin and challenging steep bumps on Lookout Below. Cloudspin had me hooting during our final descent of the day. Though short, Blazer’s Bluff offers up the steepest pitch on the mountain. And finally, we dabbled in the trees including an adrenaline tapping off map descent where I had inspired turns second only to our run down Slide 3.

So how does Whiteface stack up? It certainly is one mother of a mountain. But its dubious 3166′ drop isn’t the mammoth grand daddy it seems on paper. More sensible mountain planners would have made the Bear trail an access road and put the base lodge at the bottom of the Freeway Double. A top to bottom run seems exciting but becomes a needlessly arduous leg burner after dropping below Boulie’s Bistro. The three fixed grip trail pods all offer great vertical in their own right without need of bombastic top to bottom vertical headlines. I mean this as highly complimentary: Whiteface’s vertical is its least appealing attribute.

Whiteface’s Olympic heritage is readily apparent if somewhat downplayed and under celebrated. The dilapidated starting shack for the 1980 Women’s Downhill is overshadowed by a “Bear Crossing”. Vertical trumps history from a marketing perspective, I suppose. You can’t deny that Whiteface has some of the best steep ripping groomers in the northeast. Just thinking about an Olympic Downhill run on Cloudspin or Skyward is enough to make your legs quake. And the runs off the Mountain Run chair are the real deal, straight up rippers.

The Slides stand alone for on map terrain. But they are hardly ever open (especially to those without avalanche gear) and more comparative in terms of sidecountry/slackcountry than on piste. While it can’t top Mansfield or Cannon for pucker, it certainly wins for the access and ease of repetition. But it fails for dependability. For those that time it just right, the Slides are certainly worth the trip.

Whereas Whiteface certainly owns for ripping steep groomers, classic character trails, and advanced thrills in the Slides, it is readily apparent why New York’s tree skiing and tele culture finds its home at Gore. Our host got us into trees very reminiscent of Cannon’s tight bark chewing lines. But the expansiveness and tree skiing culture has yet to fully develop at Whiteface. Tremendous opportunity is readily apparent at Lookout Mountain (and under the under utilized liftlines).

The three upper mountain trail pods offer sensational terrain. But the run outs serviced by the Bear Double are, well, unbearable. Skiing below Boule’s Bistro was fatiguing both physically and mentally. Experts and beginners are well serviced by Whiteface’s upper and lower mountain trail pods respectively. But intermediates are left with the scraps only being serviced by four main routes (or about seven trails depending how you count). While the quality of those trails is on par with the best intermediate cruising in the northeast (The Wilmington Trail should rank amongst the top three best and most interesting blue squares in the northeast), the quantity of options might disappoint those not able to handle Whiteface’s steeps but also unsatisfied with the lower mountain’s lack of pitch.

My first skiing visit to New York and the Adirondacks was sensational and well timed. The weather was perfect, the snow was delightful, and the skiing exceptional. The Slides lived up to expectation but satisfied in a much different way than I had anticipated: less for steep gully skiing than for technical and sometimes tight tree and chute skiing. But beyond the Slides, I found Whiteface quite a collection of high quality trails and runs full of classic character even if occasionally fairly wide. Having cut my chops at Cannon, I found myself quite at home at Whiteface. I began to take note that the Dacks share much in common with my beloved Whites.