avoiding the crowds on a Saturday?
I was planning on getting there around 8:15 and parking right below "Fallmount". We will get the 4-hour flex ticket, ski from 8:30 to 12:30. Warm up off the EZ-Rider Quad (I haven't skied there since Ledgewood opened), head over to the Whitetail Express Quad at 9:00 and ski those runs until it gets crowded. We will then TRY to ski off the Experts' Choice Quad and get back to the car via "Fallmount". Does that sound like a viable plan?
Sorry if it's redundant, but I tried searching for trip reports and advice on Whitetail and most of the posts I came across were over 5 years old. I also just posted my Winter Park trip report only to have it not post since my login expired :(
Darwin
Darwin,
As someone who considers WT his home area, I think you have a good plan for Saturday skiing there. By 1030, all but the Expert's Choice lift should have substantial lines, but, as you probably know, the WT Express line moves fairly quickly.
Whitetail has had exceptionally good snow coverage and grooming this year, recovering quickly from warm, r@iny spells. If you ski Ledgewood, you'll probably enjoy its swoopy, almost traditional New England-like, upper part ... and then deplore the flat runout. Hit the fall line of Ledgewood hard when you see the run turn to the left. There is now a connector on the right to a teaching area (Velvet?) that provides an escape and some variety.
Enjoy.
Woody
I agree with Woody, that sounds like a good plan Darwin. From that lot near Fallmount you can ski quite close to the backside of the ticket window, make a quick purchase if needed, then continue to base area lifts. Later you can easily get back to your car for supplies/food or when leaving.
I had a recent trip report post vaporize like that too and figured I must have timed out or something. I guess the thing to do is post part of it fairly promptly and then go back and edit when adding more text or photos??
Good to see you at Liberty on Jan 25th!
Best way to avoid the crowds at WT is go pass the Clear Springs exit on I70 and take the Keyser's Ridge exit off of I68.
..a good plan. But I'd skip the long lift ride on EZ Rider first thing in the morning. You can get multiple laps and largely uncut runs off the Express Lift if you're there at 8:30. Hit Limelight, Snowdancer and Fanciful. Maybe twice. Then roll over to the Expert's Choice, or K-Side, as we call it. Lift lines may not form until around 11 over there.
I'm already thinking there's a bit of winter fatigue which is keeping some of the casual attendance away, so it may not be as crowded as you'd expect (maybe!). Enjoy.
Don't forget, you can BYOB in the parking lot. Enjoy a tailgate if you park off Fallmount at the end of the day. It's not quite A-Basin, but it can work!
Thanks for all the quick responses. I will definitely post a trip report (hopefully it won't get deleted this time) after our day trip. I do hope that I'm able to tackle the trails off of Experts' Choice Quad. If not, I'll be stuck with the masses at the Whitetail Express.
JimK - great meeting you at Liberty! Hopefully we'll get to meet up and ski soon!
Have a great weekend on the slopes!
Darwin
skiobsessed wrote:
I do hope that I'm able to tackle the trails off of Experts' Choice Quad. If not, I'll be stuck with the masses at the Whitetail Express.
Far Side is a nice cruiser over there. A steep portion towards the end, but a nice, longer run. Check it out!
FreshPow wrote:
....I'm already thinking there's a bit of winter fatigue which is keeping some of the casual attendance away,...
I've actually been wondering where the crowds have been this season? I haven't seen any of those super packed days at Whitetail, where the staff have to park at the golf course. Though I think it's been a really good season for snowmaking, i've wondered whether they are making enough $ to justify staying open since T-giving weekend? Sure hope so.
For the OP, another trick is to ride up the Exp Choice lift, take Ridge Runner > Angel Drop > Drop In back to the lift (if you want to avoid the long black runs but still use that chair)
FreshPow wrote:
skiobsessed wrote:
I do hope that I'm able to tackle the trails off of Experts' Choice Quad. If not, I'll be stuck with the masses at the Whitetail Express.
Far Side is a nice cruiser over there. A steep portion towards the end, but a nice, longer run. Check it out!
Far side has become my favorite trail there. The bottom is quite steep, but I think drop in is worse. I honestly find the difference in skiing laps on farside vs skiing laps on the trails off the front isn't that much. The blues on the front are a bit longer and with the high speed lift don't allow for much rest at all, I also think the snow holds up better on farside than the blues on the front.
Farside is steeper than the others, off the express lift but if you feel ok about drop in you should enjoy farside. Bold decision is steeper, and has less cool down sections than farside, which is why it is the double black.
Conditions have been nice today. Regular sized crowd but not huge crowd right now.
Whitetail TR 2/8/14 -
Headed up to Whitetail at 7:00 am and arrived in the far right parking lot about 8:15 am. 200 (ICC) to 270 and then 70 was free of traffic so we made decent time. No line at the ticket window, although we were surprised to find that Whitetail uses the sticker/wicket ticket system. Is it to prevent people from transferring their tickets? We were once approached by someone at Liberty's parking lot to use our ticket as we were heading out. Obviously, we didn't give our ticket because it was dishonest and we only had 30 minutes left on our ticket, but I could see how it might be a problem if enough people started doing it. Has anyone encountered this at other resorts?
We started skiing at 8:40 am and I finally tried out Ledgewood to warm up. The greens were empty and I was stuck in the flat-out section towards the end of that short trail. We headed over to the Whitetail Express and started to ski all the blues off the chairlift. Fanciful was partially closed for the racecourse, and I found Limelight to have the most consistent snow of the 4 trails. Home Run picks up a lot of speed at the end and seems the least crowded today. We were able to ski without waiting in a long line for Whitetail Express until 10:20 am or so.
We decided to spend the rest of the 4-hour flex session at the Expert's Choice area. We started off with Farside, than Exhibition, and finally, Bold Decision. To my friend's surprise, Exhibition was groomed and not bumped up. A ski patrol who rode the chairlift with us explained that the ice storm messed up the moguls, so they'll let it bump up again this week. We found Farside and Exhibition to be choppy (I'm not a good skier) and Exhibition alternated from slick spots to chopped up snow to small bumps. We were pleasantly surprised to find that Bold Decision had the best snow on the backside and skied that trial mostly.
When it was about noon, we skied off Fallmount, turned when we saw the shed, and skied back to the car. It was a very productive day and I thoroughly enjoyed my morning sesssion at Whitetail. We never encountered a long line at the Expert's Choice Quad and it was almost empty from 11:30 - 12:00 since most people were eating lunch. We also didn't have to deal with the madhouse known as the lodge at Whitetail by brining snacks and using our hydration pack when we skied.
Thanks for the advice from the many posters on this forum. I will even try taking Ridge Runner, Angel Drop, and Drop-In next time to give us 4 trails to ski with off the Expert's Choice Quad. Whitetail is indeed a great place to be even on a busy Saturday if you go out early enough to avoid the crowd.
Darwin
camp wrote:
I've actually been wondering where the crowds have been this season? I haven't seen any of those super packed days at Whitetail, where the staff have to park at the golf course. Though I think it's been a really good season for snowmaking, i've wondered whether they are making enough $ to justify staying open since T-giving weekend? Sure hope so.
We were talking about this today. I think that the reason Whitetail has not had "mega" crowds has to do with the fact that we have had consistently good skiing weather rather than the usual 2-3 good weekends with lots of warm-ups inbetween. So the number of skier visits are spread out instead of concentrated on just a few weekends. Also, the weekday numbers have been greater than in previous years. Overall the talk at Whitetail is that this is a good year.
I was at Roundtop on Saturday. They had also groomed out a lot after the freezing rain that came down after the snow last week. Was not crowded at all.
Metal wickets and sticker lift tickets are being used in a plenty of smaller places.
camp wrote:
FreshPow wrote:
....I'm already thinking there's a bit of winter fatigue which is keeping some of the casual attendance away,...
I've actually been wondering where the crowds have been this season? I haven't seen any of those super packed days at Whitetail, where the staff have to park at the golf course. Though I think it's been a really good season for snowmaking, i've wondered whether they are making enough $ to justify staying open since T-giving weekend? Sure hope so.
For the OP, another trick is to ride up the Exp Choice lift, take Ridge Runner > Angel Drop > Drop In back to the lift (if you want to avoid the long black runs but still use that chair)
Actually I feel like this year has been much busier on the weekends than the past 2 years. There have been several weekends not named MLK that the parking plan has been in place, plus the lift lines and lessons seem to constantly be much busier than in years past. I am going on my 3rd year instructing at WT and this has been by far the most consistantly busy year yet.
