As is often the case at the tallest ski center in the Northeast, Mother Nature made herself known Sunday morning. Fierce winds forced almost every ski lift at Whiteface Mountain to delay its scheduled opening. For a time, it was anyone’s guess when the lifts would start spinning, though the forecast was optimistic, showing winds gradually diminishing as the day progressed.

The forecast held true, and lifts opened up one-by-one as the morning went on. When the terrain expanded, the crowd ebbed and flowed around the mountain. Soon enough, just one lift scheduled to spin remained on hold: the Little Whiteface Chair.

Given the other trails and lifts at their disposal, most skiers and riders made their way around the mountain. Some checked in from time to time to see if the new lift was ready, before moving on at the sight of the motionless chairs.

Ty and Kara Kretser had a decidedly different approach. The father-daughter duo was determined to catch the first chair on this new lift. They arrived at the ski area around 7 a.m., waited through the initial all-mountain wind delay and once the lower lifts opened, made their way up to the Little Whiteface Chair, which loads about halfway up the mountain.

Ty, left, and Kara Kretser catch the first chair at the opening of the new Little Whiteface lift at the Whiteface Mountain ski area on Sunday. (Enterprise photo — Chris Gaige)

They staked their spot early at the front of the line, not knowing exactly how long it would be until it opened. When lift operators informed them that it could be a while longer, the longtime skiers held firm. As the morning went on, they switched off on occasion, allowing one to take a break in the nearby mid-mountain chalet.

Ty said it was one of his favorite lifts on the mountain, and the chance to snag the first official chair alongside his daughter made it well worth the wait. He added that if the lift remained closed all day, the two would have come back the next day it was scheduled to open to secure the first chair then.

It soon became clear, though, that no such postponement was necessary. The chairs started spinning, and the team of lift operators began brushing snow off as each one circled through the terminal. A crowd began assembling.

When the prep work was complete just after noon, it was time for celebration. Whiteface General Manager Aaron Kellett, a high school friend of Ty, was not at all surprised when he skied up to see them at the front of the line. Kellett, with golden ceremonial scissors in hand, cut the ribbon soon thereafter. The Kretsers sat down for the first official chair at 12:18 p.m., ushering in a new chapter for one of the mountain’s most cherished lift routes.

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Whiteface General Manager Aaron Kellett cuts the ribbon, held by Tess Morrissey, left, and Jarrett Lapinski, for the new Little Whiteface Chair. The lift, which was installed over the summer and replaced a pair of old double chairlifts that ran the same route, officially opened to the public on Sunday. (Enterprise photo — Chris Gaige)

A storied legacy

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The Little Whiteface Chair is a fan favorite, particularly among advanced skiers at Whiteface. Its lift line runs directly up Mountain Run, a black diamond trail that drops almost 1,000 feet in less than half a mile. At the top of Mountain Run, the chairlift has a mid-station, where skiers and riders have the option to unload for Mountain Run and the other steeps that parallel it, or continue on the chairlift to the summit of Little Whiteface, where the chair tracks near the top of the ridgeline above the gondola, offering expansive views of the High Peaks, Sentinel Range and other Olympic venues around Lake Placid.

The chairlift unloads near the top of the gondola, offering a mix of intermediate and advanced trails, while giving skiers and riders an opportunity to dodge some of the crowds on busy days. The new Little Whiteface Chair, like its predecessor, is a fixed-grip double chair. It was installed over the summer by manufacturer Skytrac, which had previously installed two other lifts — the Falcon Flyer and Warhorse, both fixed-grip quadruple chairlifts — at Whiteface in recent years.

The new Little Whiteface Chair was also able to salvage some components of its predecessor, which shared the same name, given that it essentially followed the same track. This includes the mid-station unloading ramp and the towers on the upper portion of the lift line, which were installed in the early 2010s. These towers were relatively new compared to the other components of the lift, most of which dated back to the 1980s.

With the installation of the new lift came the permanent removal of the Mountain Run Double, which had paralleled the lower portion of the Little Whiteface Chair, sharing the same lower towers in a double-double setup. While the dual lifts served a more useful purpose at one point, the 1999 installation of the Cloudsplitter Gondola significantly redirected traffic from this area of the mountain, and in recent years, the Mountain Run Double very rarely ran, yet still required annual maintenance and upkeep.

Whiteface Mountain has about 52% of its terrain open, as of press time Sunday. Snowmaking is ongoing on the Wilmington Trail, the longest run at the mountain. For the latest conditions, visit tinyurl.com/bdd8rycv.