The Whiteface Mountain general manager was brimming with excitement on Thursday as he detailed the ski area’s operational plans going into the holidays, one of the busiest times of the ski season. In his two decades working there, Kellett was hard-pressed to recall another season with as optimal a start as this year.

“I would say it’s the best spot we’ve ever been in, honestly,” he said.

The mountain’s conditions report would seem to back that up. Some trails that don’t usually open for another month or so in a usual season, such as Upper Northway, have been open for a week already.

More than half of the terrain, 54%, is already open. At this time last year, that figure stood at just 34%. It’s more than just trails. The mountain has received over five feet of natural snow so far this year, 62 inches, according to its conditions report for Thursday. On Dec. 12, 2024, Whiteface had only received 39 inches of natural snow so far for the season.

Snow "whales" are seen on the Brookside trail at the Whiteface Mountain ski area in Wilmington on Thursday. (Enterprise photo — Chris Gaige)

Kellett said that this open terrain figure should grow by about another 10% this weekend, as ropes are slated to drop on several popular ski trails, such as Mountain Run, on “The Face,” the front-facing advanced terrain off the Little Whiteface peak.

Snowmaking has been relentless there for the past several days. Kellett said the weather over the past few weeks has been nothing short of ideal. Save for one warm patch in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, temperatures have constantly remained below freezing, allowing the mountain’s snowmaking department, led by Morgan Langey, to fire on all cylinders.

Not only has this allowed for ample snowmaking, Kellett said, but also prudent planning. In less favorable years, snowmakers there have had to scramble to quickly cover certain patches of terrain under fleeting patches of favorable weather before the next thaw. Knowing that crews would not have just a day or two, but upwards of a week of consistent freezing temperatures allowed them to thoughtfully build up the base.

Kellett said this has led to more durable trails once they open that should be able to withstand an eventual thaw or two without crews having to temporarily close them, then jump around for the ensuing freeze. This was particularly the case, the general manager said, on “The Face” trails slated to open this weekend.

“We’ve been focusing on the Face this whole week,” he said. “We’ve done a really good job of putting down some serious snow, and one of our goals was to make sure that we didn’t have to go back there for a while. We really took the time to do it right this year. We aren’t scrambling to say, ‘Oh, we need to get the Summit open before Christmas.’ We’ve (already) got that.”

Besides that, Kellett said it’s a huge relief for mountain officials to have the beginner-friendly terrain around the Lower Mountain already taken care of. It’s a priority leading up to the holidays, as a lot of the mountain’s guest base — and ticket revenue — around then are those who ski less frequently, or may be trying it out for the first time.

“We’ve got just about everything on the lower mountain open,” he said. “Normally, we’re having to find ways to squeeze that stuff in, but we’ve been able to get it all done super early, and it’s been amazing.”

Indeed, every trail at the Bear Den Learning Center, formerly known as the Kids Kampus, is open as of press time Thursday, with snowmakers having laid a hefty base there a week or so earlier. Going forward, cold weather is expected to remain in place across the Northeast through the middle of next week. Kellett said there were no intentions to slow down snowmaking in the meantime.

He said the current plan — with the caveat that it’s always subject to change — is to spend a day or two making more snow on Upper Northway to build up the base depth, and make its surface more consistent. After that, the plan is to move over to the Wilmington Trail on Lookout Mountain.

Rated as a blue square, or an intermediate level of difficulty, the Wilmington Trail clocks in at just over two miles. The cruiser is the longest continuous trail at Whiteface, and among the longest in eastern North America.

Given its length, it will likely take several days to make the requisite amount of snow on the Wilmington Trail. After that, two major trails remain untouched by snowmaking so far, Upper Skyward and Hoyt’s High, both of which are steep black diamonds, but have distinct flavors from one another.

Upper Skyward runs from the summit area and is a straight, wide trail with a generally consistent steep pitch. Hoyt’s High is part of Lookout Mountain and tends to be narrower than Skyward, with more twists and turns and a fairly unique double fall line in its pitch.

Historically, Hoyt’s was among the last trails to open at Whiteface, partly because of how difficult it was to make snow on it. Though there were compressed air and water lines, the trail had no fixed snow guns and its steepness meant there was only one way to get smaller, mobile snow guns into place: by having snowmakers send each gun up the Lookout Triple chairlift, then drag them down the trail into place.

This summer, 115 high-efficiency fixed snow guns were installed on the trail, making snowmaking there significantly less time-intensive. An article on that from the Lake Placid News, a sister newspaper of the Enterprise, is available at tinyurl.com/376vcr45.

What used to take upwards of a week under cooperative weather conditions should now only take three days, Kellett said.

“We think Lookout will play a super role in this Christmas holiday, and we want to make sure we’ve got as much of it open over there as we can,” he said. “That’ll be the new thing, last year was the first time we ever opened three peaks for Christmas — and this year, we’re hoping to get Hoyt’s over there, too.”

While not finalized, Kellett said Whiteface officials were leaning toward snowmaking on Hoyt’s ahead of Upper Skyward this year, before setting up snowmaking there, along with the two primary trails Upper Skyward leads to, Lower Skyward and Niagara. Both of which have already seen some open days this year, on account of natural snowfall — albeit with a thinner base than would be the case after snowmaking.

As successful a start as this year isn’t the result of magic or merely favorable weather conditions. Kellett said crews have done a good job this year on the quality control aspect of Whiteface’s mountain operations.

“We do a really good job of watching the status of our equipment,” he said. “Anything that’s going to affect the public is very thoroughly checked every day, and overnight, we’re watching things. We’re really taking the time to make sure that what we’re putting our public on has gone through the process to be thoroughly vetted, that it’s operating the way it should.”

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Strong numbers

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In late October, Whiteface was ranked as the third-best ski resort in eastern North America in SKI Magazine’s reader resort survey. More on that is available at tinyurl.com/mrccahfr. The prestigious recognition marked a meteoric ascent for the mountain, which failed to crack the top 20 in those rankings the year before.

Whiteface has seen a boost in its season pass and day ticket sales. The mountain has sold 8% more season passes for the 2025-26 winter than it had at this time last year, Kellett noted.

“It’s strong,” he said. “So far, it’s really good. We’re up … which was expected. We had a great year last year, so we expected a little bit of a jump and it was probably a little more than we thought, which is great.”

Its ticketed visits are up a whopping 60% compared to last season at this time, according to Kellett, a figure almost certainly buoyed by favorable ski weather — as most season pass sales are locked in well in advance of the season’s weather conditions.

So far, season pass holders have made up 75% of the visits to the mountain. Kellett said this was typical for the early and late ends of the season, as day-ticket holders tend to surge during the holidays and other busy times closer to mid-season.

“Really, no complaints,” he said of the mountain’s visitation rates. “We’re seeing some really good early-season business and we’re excited and proud of the product that we have to offer people.”

These numbers buck a slump in ski pass sales from the continent’s largest ski resort owner. Vail Resorts, which boasts 42 ski areas in its holdings, reported a 2% drop in its North American season pass sales through Dec. 5 as compared to last year, according to its Dec. 10 quarterly earnings report.

Whiteface is operated by the state Olympic Regional Development Authority, along with the Gore Mountain ski area in North Creek and the Belleayre Mountain ski area in the Catskills.