To my mind, the primary differences are that Whitetail’s blues are noticeably longer, and (at least as of last week) had fewer bumps than some of the Liberty blues.  The Whitetail blues did get a bit mushy in the afternoon after a day of full sun (but I do not recall exactly how the Liberty blues hold up during the day). My youngest—in his second year of skiing—spent almost a full day on the Whitetail blues last week, and loved it.

There is the added benefit that Exhibition (the single black) is not too much different than the blues, though it is often ungroomed, and can be a great confidence builder depending on how their day is going (again, we took our youngest there for his first ever black run after a day going down the blues, and he ended the day very proud of himself).

Agree with novace - WT blues are longer for sure, so definitely more of a workout.  They have the high speed chair at the bottom, so if lift lines aren't crazy (big if) you can get a ton of runs in.  I haven't been to Liberty in a couple years, but my recollection is that the WT blues are slightly steeper too, but not sure about that.

Agree as well that the WT single blacks (exhibition and far side) aren't much harder than the blues, so they are a nice way to get some experience on black slopes.  Exhibition can get quite bumpy though if they don't groom it, so if the kiddo hasn't skied bumps before it can be a handful.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the input!  Since they can start on the Whitetail greens, I think they should have a good time checking out the blues.

I remember the blues were pretty good for demo'ing skis.  There wasn't much need to go all the way over to the black trails.

The ranking to me (having skied a lot of the beginner trails with people I've gone with that are fairly new to skiing) of beginner to intermediate between the resorts is:

Bunny Hill - tie between WT and Liberty

Next Step Up to non-Bunny Hill Beginner - Liberty with Blue Streak, Sneaky Pete, Nova, Adventure Alley and Vertigo

Next Step Up to Longer Beginner Trails - probably a tie between the two with Dipsy Doodle having the two first turns (one part with an intimidating slope for beginners) plus is more narrow and much more crowded with lots of people from the back side using it while WT has Sidewinder (probably the best step up to along green between the two resorts) and Snowpark which is nice and wide, but you see so many people on there in complete fear if they are new to it.

Intermediate Trails - Liberty definitely has easier blues than Whitetail as they are short and less of a slope for most of them, though the top part of Upper Heavenly can be very intimidating for new first time blue skiers and is a very crowded stretch.   Sidewinder (Liberty has one too) is an easier way to access the blue trails at Liberty or go down Dipsy Doodle and then cut over to Whitney's Way from there.    The WT blues are much longer with a good vertical and are four that are fairly similar though are varying degrees of difficulty between them.   Most will start with Angel Drop if new to the Blues at WT.    Blue trails at both resorts can get chopped up pretty quickly on busy days, especially when above freezing, and can become crowded on Weekends which add additional levels of challenge and intimidation for new skiers.    Much of one's comfort at a new level of slope depends upon the conditions so always best to hit them earlier in the day.

Spent 7 hours last Wednesday at Liberty, and 7 hours today at Whitetail.  Both times mostly lapping blues (back side of Liberty, middle stuff off the express quad at Whitetail).  I did every run on both sites at least twice, except Upper Eastwind at Liberty because it was mogul'ed and I wimped out :-).  My $0.02 follows:

The Blues at Whitetail are longer.  I think the vertical is 930' at Whitetail, 620' at Liberty, so exactly 50% more at Whitetail.  My legs noticed it at the bottom.  

The Blues at Whitetail are more consistent in slope.  At liberty it felt like there was more variation of steepness.  This is reflected with (upper, lower) (strata, eastwind, ultra) all double black on top, blue on bottom.  At Liberty, Upper Heavenly and Lower Strata felt more like single black diamonds to me than blues. 

At Whitetail, Bold Decision (double black) and Farside (single black) felt more like blues.  Probably comparable in difficulty and length to a run starting on Upper Heavenly at Liberty.

Everything at Whitetail was groomed, so I can't really say what it is like when mogul'ed.

I did each of the blues/blacks at Whitetail exactly once after dark.  My impression is that they aren't as well lit as the runs at Liberty.  I've skied more at night at Liberty, but I don't recall every being in a dark spot at Liberty like I was at Whitetail.

The express quad at Whitetail made it really easy to lap blues and get in some vertical.  I got 27,256 feet of vert in 7 hours, which is pretty good for me.  Next time I go to Whitetail, I think I'll try to get an Everest (29,032').  I didn't have a tracker at Liberty, but I would be shocked if my vert/hour was higher at Liberty than at Whitetail.

Both Whitetail and Liberty are in far Southern PA.  Expect icy patches at both, regardless of weather.  But I don't care if the mountains and snow are better in [Vermont, Colorado, Alberta, , France, Austria, Hokkaido, wherever]... Liberty and Whitetail are both fun places to ski.  I'm glad they exist and I hope Vail Resorts keeps them healthy.

 Just noticed that Ledgewood was missing this morning from the list of trails.   Not often a ski resort removes a trail as they always try and inflate the number of trails, but I guess with its length and amount of snowmaking needed to open it just didn't justify the expense/effort with the low number of skiers using it.    It's a shame as it was a fun quick drop with the curve as others have said.  

Scott wrote:

Hmm, good catch.  Ledgewood was on the condition report a few days ago but does seem to be gone now.  The flat part wasn't ideal, but it was the only trail at Whitetail that had any kind of curve to it, which made it interesting.

mdr227 wrote:

 Just noticed that Ledgewood was missing this morning from the list of trails.   Not often a ski resort removes a trail as they always try and inflate the number of trails, but I guess with its length and amount of snowmaking needed to open it just didn't justify the expense/effort with the low number of skiers using it.    It's a shame as it was a fun quick drop with the curve as others have said.  

Scott wrote:

Hmm, good catch.  Ledgewood was on the condition report a few days ago but does seem to be gone now.  The flat part wasn't ideal, but it was the only trail at Whitetail that had any kind of curve to it, which made it interesting.

 Seems silly to remove a trail from the grooming report when it's still on the trail map.  Roper's Road at Wachusett near Boston is only open when there is enough natural snow.  It's a blue that's narrow with plenty of curves so even putting portable snow guns out would be impractical.  Some winters it never opens.

I'm glad y'all mentioned Ledgewood.  I really wanted to be able to say I did "every" trail when I was there.  I noticed that the lower section of Ledgewood had snow (and even had a few guns on it), but the upper section was closed off with poles in an "X". When I looked at my day map in the EpicMix app, it was the one run that was on the map but not covered by my activity.