My wife and I just got back from an early season trip to Lake Placid. I'm working on a full trip report I plan on posting on Epicski and will link to from here, but figured I'd give everyone a few highlights from the trip.

First, going to Lake Placid is like a Winter Olympics pilgrimage. Besides skiing on the mountain where the 80 Olympics alpine events took place, you can also try your hand at the bobsled and skeleton, and go up to the top of the ski jump and see what it looks like from where the competitors were at the top of the jump.

While only 20 percent of the mountain was open, that still included over 2400 vertical of terrain and parts of what were the 80's men's and women's downhill skiing event trails. For most days, the snow was hard and fast. Perfect for your front side carver skis. My favorite trail ended up being Exselsior, it is an intermediate trail from the Little Whiteface summit with lots of curves in it. Sort of like Stembogan at Blue Knob. The last day I skied there was no one on the trail but me and I was able blast down it a couple of times just following the curves of the trail and not making any other turns.

A good number of Whiteface's blue trails would be blacks at any of our local ski areas. I'd say the pitch of Victoria, a blue trail that as part of the Women's downhill ski course in the Olympics is steeper than Mainstreet at Wisp and more like White Lightning at Timberline and one of their Green trails had a short area that was steeper and longer than a tiny black diamond trail at Canaan Valley. Except for a few very small trails at the bottom of the mountain, Whiteface is not a beginner friendly mountain.

That said, My wife experienced skiing for the first time last week. She first took a two hour regular private lesson with an instructor named John. Because of her health issues, John recommended that she sign up for the Adaptive ski program the next time and take a lesson that way. She got her second lesson as part of the adaptive ski program (which was cheaper than getting a lift ticket, rentals, and a private lesson) and ended up having two instructors with her most of the time. Even with a couple of days rest, her legs were still pretty tired from the the first day of trying skiing and after an hour they switch from the ski blades they use to teach beginners at Whiteface to the biski, which is a sit down ski that they strap your body into and you shift your weight from side to side to put the skis on the chair on edge to turn, a lot like regular skiing. I got to watch them put her in the bi -ski on the chair for the beginner slope (quite a process) and then follow her down for one run. They gave her a Lake Placid "Gold Medal" for being their first adaptive program client of the season.

I did both the skeleton and the bobsled runs at the Lake Placid sliding track. For the skeleton, you are lying on your stomach on a sled that is 3, maybe for inches off the ice and you go through 1/4 mile of the sliding track. I went through the 1/4 mile with a time of 36 seconds, going 30 miles per an hour or more at places. My wife and I both did the bobsled together. For the bobsled you go down 1/2 mile of the sliding track and they provide a driver and a brakeman for the ride. I think our time was somewhere in the mid-forties hitting over 50 miles per an hour at places on the track. It wasn't cheap to do either of these, but it is a big adrenaline rush and a once in a lifetime experience.

To top it off, Lake Placid is a nice, small ski town to walk around in with many interesting shops and restaurants. Nearby Lake Saranac also provides a nice change of pace and a less expensive place to eat and hang out for awhile as well.

So that's about it. We had a lot of fun, some good early season skiing, and got to experience a couple of other fast winter sports. All-in-all a great early season trip!

Sounds like it was an interesting week for weather at WF. Little bit of snow, little bit or rain, little bit of mixed? No real dumps?

You hit the weather while I was up there right on the nail. One day I skied in light rain, another day things looked fine at the bottom, but they couldn't open the gondola due to high winds. They only had the Facelift lift running that day. Friday I didn't ski at all as it was a mix of rain and high winds. They were getting hit with some snow the day we left, but I think that was only an inch or two at most.

Still, I got four days of early season skiing in, so I'm not complaining.

What green trail was it that was steeper then the black diamond at Canaan?

The trail Boreen at Whiteface, while it has a gentle slope for most of the trail, has several drops along the trail that are definitely not what you would expect from a green level trail. In fact, there is a semi-steep drop at the beginning of the trail and there was one short drop that felt comparable to the Face trail at Canaan Valley. It may not have been as steep, but it certainly was longer than the Face trail at Canaan.

Now, I don't think the Face should be rated a black diamond at Canaan. It isn't any where near as difficult as the other black diamonds at Canaan and it is so short that it really shouldn't be it's own run. I remember skiing Canaan last Christmas when Valley Vista to the Face was the only trail open besides the beginner triangle and feeling lied to by the trail map by how long the Face trail looks on the map when it is this tiny drop near the end of the trail and that it was rated a black diamond.

In reality, Whiteface is not a beginner friendly mountain. They have a couple of true green trails at the bottom of the mountain that have very little vertical. Past those couple of short trails, you really need to be at least an intermediate, and best to be a strong intermediate to ski the rest of the mountain. Liberty and Whitetail have longer beginner trails than Whiteface does.