The Whiteface Mountain ski center is seen on Oct. 21 in Wilmington. Snowmaking has since begun and is expected to continue later this week as temperatures allow. (Enterprise photo — Chris Gaige)

WILMINGTON — With the snow guns cranking up over the weekend as colder weather begins to settle in, the Whiteface Mountain ski center is heading into the 2025-26 ski season with two prestigious recognitions under its belt.

Last week, it was revealed that Whiteface placed third in SKI Magazine’s reader-ranked top 20 East Coast ski resorts for 2026, finishing behind only Sugarloaf and Saddleback mountains, both of which are in Maine. The bronze finish marked an impressive ascent for Whiteface, which failed to crack the top 20 in last year’s SKI Magazine reader survey.

This comes a couple of weeks after the mountain, which boasts the greatest North American vertical drop east of the Rockies, posted another notable finish in a different survey: the 2025 Readers’ Choice Conde Nast Traveler Top 30 Ski Resorts in the U.S.

Whiteface ranked 16th overall in that survey, and fifth place amongst East Coast resorts. Top honors in the East went to, in descending order, Bretton Woods (New Hampshire — third overall), Blue Mountain (Pennsylvania — 10th overall), Killington (Vermont — 12th overall) and Stowe (Vermont — 14th overall). The highest-ranked resort nationally in that survey is Aspen Mountain in Colorado.

Whiteface Mountain ski resort is one of three ski areas operated by the state Olympic Regional Development Authority, along with Gore Mountain in North Creek and Belleayre Mountain in the Catskills. Gore was ranked 11th SKI Magazine’s list. Neither Gore nor Belleayre made the Conde Nast rankings this year.

According to SKI Magazine, its annual survey takes place in the spring when the publication sends out a questionnaire to roughly 200,000 readers on its email lists. The magazine gives respondents 18 metrics to rank a resort.

These include the skier-centric metrics of snow, grooming and challenge, as well as the beyond-the-slopes amenities such as apres ski, lodging and guest service, according to the magazine. Resorts earn a score between 1 and 10 in each category, which adds up to their overall score.

“And because we are SKI, we assign a higher value to the core ski-related categories of snow, challenge, terrain variety, grooming, and lifts,” wrote SKI editor Samantha Berman in an article detailing the process. “This means that resorts that scored higher in those categories will see a boost in their ranking.”

Berman added that ski resorts can’t buy their way onto the list, and that no matter how much they advertise with the publication — which is owned by Outside Interactive, Inc. — it doesn’t have any influence on the rankings, which are purely based on the survey scores.

“No money nor exchange of advertising is involved in the process,” she wrote. “Absolutely none. We host the survey, and you, the readers, decide the rankings.”

Berman did, however, note that SKI Magazine tweaked its evaluation weighting from previous years, with readers telling the magazine to cut the fluff, so to speak.

“While resort amenities such as lodging, dining, and family programming are certainly appreciated, our readers are interested in seeing the resorts evaluated more heavily on the ski experience itself,” Berman wrote. “After all, that’s why they’re there.”

Whiteface Mountain General Manager Aaron Kellett said he was “super excited” to see the results. For him, they affirmed the hard work he’s seen at the mountain over the last couple of years, and he was glad that it was rubbing off on guests when it came time to rank ski areas in the survey.

“I think everything really came together last year,” he said. “We saw our improvements in our snowmaking systems and our lift systems really paying off — being more reliable, being able to utilize our snowmaking system to the best of its capabilities, the best we ever have.”

In addition to being a point of pride for regular guests — who know what the mountain has to offer, regardless of a lofty ranking on a list — Kellett said these strong performances are especially important when it comes to putting Whiteface in the conversation for skiers and snowboarders coming from further away, who may be choosing between several different resorts for a ski or snowboard vacation.

“It’s opening doors for us and having this great skiing product is really putting us on center stage in the world of skiing again,” he said. “That really means a lot to us.”

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Snowmaking underway

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Kellett said this past weekend’s snowmaking kickoff was the earliest he could recall in his approximately two decades with the mountain. It was a combination of cooperative weather and attentive preparation. He said crews did a lot of maintenance on the system over the summer and performed a lot of the testing ahead of time so that things were ready to roll as soon as the opportunity to make snow manifested.

With today’s warmer weather, Kellett said the mountain will be in a stop-and-go pattern for snowmaking this week, turning the guns on as temperatures allow, and rolling with the freeze-thaw bouts that early-season snowmaking presents.

Whiteface has not yet announced an opening date for the season. Though heavily dependent on conditions, that’s typically in late November. Last year, the mountain first opened on Nov. 15 for season pass holders and Nov. 16 for everyone.