Went to Whitetail this weekend and it's great to see them in full action. Two items based on my trip
As stated, after a number of really bad years it's good to see them in full speed mode.
jn_freedman wrote:
Went to Whitetail this weekend and it's great to see them in full action. Two items based on my trip
- Anyone have any information on the Mirrors lodging across the street. Seems very cool but also very out of place for the region.
- On the lift, a person mentioned that was an original master plan that was much bigger than the current layout. Does anyone have any information, images on that.
As snowsmith noted, there used to be a display on the wall of Whitetail showing the proposed expansion - it was probably there in the late 1990s or very early 2000s, around the time they were pushing their base area real estate projects. (One could make an argument that the expansion plans were primarily intended to hype up the real estate development, and were never seriously viable. Whitetail was also pushing to become a bona fide four-season resort with offerings like mountain biking, fly fishing, summer camps, etc., but most of those offerings have since been scaled back.) Unfortunately, I've tried finding an image of that plan repeatedly but have been unsuccessful. It has been linked to in the DCSki Forums before, but sadly, the site it was hosted on is no longer operational so it's just a dead link now. I've attempted to dig up an archive of the photo from its defunct location through services like the Internet archive, but it's not there, either.
If anyone does still have a photo of that expansion plan, please upload and share it to DCSki so we can capture that piece of history. I wish I had thought to stash my own copy years ago, but alas. Maybe I'll stumble across it some day in an old brochure, but so far I've been unsuccessful.
As I recall, the proposed trail expansion showed a number of trails being cut into the valley between the top of the Whitetail Express and top of the Easy Rider Quads, along with trails cut into the backside of the mountain. None of those really happened and Whitetail has only added a few trails over the years. They added Ledgewood, an interesting curving trail off the left side of Snow Park, but then silently removed it in recent years without ever really explaining why. (You can still see it in this older trail map.) Northern Lights (and the Lift Off Quad) was a much-needed expansion that came after opening day (I believe it was added around 1994), expanding the bunny slope terrain at Whitetail. A couple connections between trails were made and given names (Bob's Small Traverse and Drop Out). But the biggest new trail expansion has been Sidewinder, a gracefully curving beginner that became the longest trail at the resort. It opened in 2008.
So, in essence, there are only a couple trails of significance that have been added to Whitetail since the resort was built and opened in 1992.
In some ways, though, there has been a contraction. When Whitetail opened, it was noted for having some of the widest trails in the region. Since then, trails like Limelight and Exhibition have had their widths significantly reduced, no doubt due to the challenges of covering them with snowmaking. I think in the current environment (less competition, warming winters, increased energy costs, etc.) it's unlikely there will be much if any trail expansion any time soon. I remember writing fairly frequent stories about new trails being cut at Mid-Atlantic resorts (Wisp, Snowshoe, Blue Mountain, etc.,) but it seems like that type of capital expansion has slowed in recent years.
Actually the plans are frame and on the wall in lift department manager's office.
therusty wrote:
Last I heard the master plan was stashed in the basement storage area under the lodge. It was a huge wall display. It was never in a trail map brochure AFAIK. They did have it hanging in the space between the information desk and Marketplace for a while. There were two lifts and around a dozen more trails in the bowl between the top and Snow Park. There was a restaurant planned for the top and another lodge planned for the Northern Lights base. Ledgewood was added to sell ski in/ski out real estate. It was a cool trail, but it took way too much snow to keep open for the terrain it added. Limelight was opened edge to edge a few times in the early years, but snowmaking screws up the high speed. Whitetail tried to bank snow away from the lift and then groom it over for a few years. Then they realized it was less grooming work to blow that snow onto other trails instead.
Scot, Here is the expansion trailmap you were looking for....
Scott wrote:
jn_freedman wrote:
Went to Whitetail this weekend and it's great to see them in full action. Two items based on my trip
- Anyone have any information on the Mirrors lodging across the street. Seems very cool but also very out of place for the region.
- On the lift, a person mentioned that was an original master plan that was much bigger than the current layout. Does anyone have any information, images on that.
As snowsmith noted, there used to be a display on the wall of Whitetail showing the proposed expansion - it was probably there in the late 1990s or very early 2000s, around the time they were pushing their base area real estate projects. (One could make an argument that the expansion plans were primarily intended to hype up the real estate development, and were never seriously viable. Whitetail was also pushing to become a bona fide four-season resort with offerings like mountain biking, fly fishing, summer camps, etc., but most of those offerings have since been scaled back.) Unfortunately, I've tried finding an image of that plan repeatedly but have been unsuccessful. It has been linked to in the DCSki Forums before, but sadly, the site it was hosted on is no longer operational so it's just a dead link now. I've attempted to dig up an archive of the photo from its defunct location through services like the Internet archive, but it's not there, either.
If anyone does still have a photo of that expansion plan, please upload and share it to DCSki so we can capture that piece of history. I wish I had thought to stash my own copy years ago, but alas. Maybe I'll stumble across it some day in an old brochure, but so far I've been unsuccessful.
As I recall, the proposed trail expansion showed a number of trails being cut into the valley between the top of the Whitetail Express and top of the Easy Rider Quads, along with trails cut into the backside of the mountain. None of those really happened and Whitetail has only added a few trails over the years. They added Ledgewood, an interesting curving trail off the left side of Snow Park, but then silently removed it in recent years without ever really explaining why. (You can still see it in this older trail map.) Northern Lights (and the Lift Off Quad) was a much-needed expansion that came after opening day (I believe it was added around 1994), expanding the bunny slope terrain at Whitetail. A couple connections between trails were made and given names (Bob's Small Traverse and Drop Out). But the biggest new trail expansion has been Sidewinder, a gracefully curving beginner that became the longest trail at the resort. It opened in 2008.
So, in essence, there are only a couple trails of significance that have been added to Whitetail since the resort was built and opened in 1992.
In some ways, though, there has been a contraction. When Whitetail opened, it was noted for having some of the widest trails in the region. Since then, trails like Limelight and Exhibition have had their widths significantly reduced, no doubt due to the challenges of covering them with snowmaking. I think in the current environment (less competition, warming winters, increased energy costs, etc.) it's unlikely there will be much if any trail expansion any time soon. I remember writing fairly frequent stories about new trails being cut at Mid-Atlantic resorts (Wisp, Snowshoe, Blue Mountain, etc.,) but it seems like that type of capital expansion has slowed in recent years.
Very cool. I was also assuming there would have been a backside but doesn't look like it.
As far as the mirror hotel thing, here's a link:
Feel's way too cool for us mere Whitetail mortals....
