This podcast hit paid subscribers’ inboxes on Dec. 30. It dropped for free subscribers on Jan. 6. To receive future pods as soon as they’re live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below: Who Aaron Kellett, General Manager of Whiteface, New York Recorded on December 4, 2023 About Whiteface View the mountain stats overview Owned by: The State of New York Located in: Wilmington, New York Year founded: 1958 Pass affiliations: NY Ski3 Pass: Unlimited, along with Gore and Belleayre Closest neighboring ski areas: Mt. Pisgah (:34), Beartown (:55), Dynamite Hill (1:05), Rydin-Hy Ranch (1:12), Titus (1:15), Gore (1:21) Base elevation: 1,220 feet Summit elevation: * 4,386 feet (top of Summit Quad) * 4,650 feet (top of The Slides) * 4,867 feet (mountain summit) Vertical drop: 3,166 feet lift-served; 3,430 feet hike-to Skiable Acres: 299 + 35 acres in The Slides Average annual snowfall: 183 inches Trail count: 94 (30% expert, 46% intermediate, 24% beginner) Lift count: 12 (1 eight-passenger gondola, 2 high-speed quads, 3 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 3 doubles, 2 carpets – view Lift Blog’s inventory of Whiteface’s lift fleet) View historic Whiteface trailmaps on skimap.org. Why I interviewed him Whiteface, colloquially “Iceface,” rises, from base to summit, a greater height than any ski area in the Northeast. That may not impress the Western chauvinists, who refuse to acknowledge any merit to east-of-the-Mississippi skiing, but were we to airlift this monster to the West Coast, it would tower over all but two ski areas in the three-state region: The International Olympic Committee does not select Winter Games host mountains by tossing darts at a world map. Consider the other U.S. ski areas that have played host: Palisades Tahoe, Park City, Snowbasin, Deer Valley. All naturally blessed with more and more consistent snow than this gnarly Adirondacks skyscraper, but Whiteface, from a pure fall-line skiing point of view, is the equal of any mountain in the country. Still not convinced? Fine. Whiteface will do just fine without you. This state-owned, heavily subsidized-by-public-funds monster seated in the heart of the frozen Adirondacks has just about the most assured future of any ski area anywhere. With an ever-improving monster of a snowmaking system and no great imperative to raise the cannons against Epkon invaders, the place is as close to climate-proof and competition-proof as a modern ski area can possibly be. There’s nothing else quite like Whiteface. Most publicly owned ski areas are ropetow bumps that sell lift tickets out of a woodshed on the edge of town. They lean on public funds because they couldn’t exist without them. The big ski areas can make their own way. But New York State, enamored of its Olympic legacy and eager to keep that flame burning, can’t quite let this one go. The result is this glimmering, grinning monster of a mountain, a boon for the skier, bane for the tax-paying family-owned ski areas in its orbit who are left to fight this colossus on their own. It’s not exactly fair and it’s not exactly right, but it exists, in all its glory and confusion, and it was way past time to highlight Whiteface on this podcast. What we talked about Whiteface’s strong early December (we recorded this before the washout); recent snowmaking enhancements; why Empire still doesn’t have snowmaking; May closings at Whiteface; why Whiteface built The Notch, an all-new high-speed quad, to serve existing terrain; other lines the ski area considered for the lift; Whiteface’s extensive transformation of the beginner experience over the past few years; remembering “snowboard parks” and the evolution of Whiteface’s terrain parks; Whiteface’s immense legacy and importance to Northeast skiing; could New York host another Winter Olympics?; potential upper-mountain lift upgrades; the etymology of recent Whitef