On the afternoon of Wednesday, Nov. 4, crews at the Bear Den parking lot strapped snow guns to a tow cable one at a time. A helicopter lowered itself over them, picked each one up and flew it to a concrete pad somewhere on Whiteface. Then it came back for the next one. According to the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, all 16 fan guns were in place in less than a day. General Manager Aaron Kellett estimated the same job would have taken about three weeks with trucks and ground equipment.
Where those guns went matters to anyone who skis here in November. For the last two seasons, Whiteface has opened from the summit and sent skiers back to the base on a chairlift. Most of this year's new snowmaking sits on the part of the mountain those opening weekends skip.
Opening weekend has meant riding the Face Lift down
Whiteface has been the first ski area in New York to open in each of the last few seasons. Both recent openings worked the same way.
| 2024-25 season | 2025-26 season | |
|---|---|---|
| First day | Nov. 15, 2024, passholders only; Nov. 16 for everyone | Saturday, Nov. 15, for everyone |
| Lifts | Face Lift and Summit Quad | Face Lift and Summit Quad |
| How you got down | Downloading on the Face Lift | Downloading on the Face Lift |
| Beginner terrain | None listed | None |
The Press-Republican's preview of the 2025-26 opening lists the trails planned for that first weekend: Riva Ridge, Paron's Run, The Follies, Excelsior, Ilmar's Alley, Lower Northway and Summit Express. The Cloudsplitter Gondola wasn't running. Lifts started at 10 a.m. and stopped loading at 3 or 3:30 p.m., instead of the regular 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Group lessons weren't offered, and private lessons were for intermediate skiers and above.
After that, the schedule came in pieces. Whiteface opened Saturday and Sunday, closed for most of the following week, opened Friday, Nov. 21, for passholders only, opened to everyone Nov. 22 and 23, then closed again until daily operations started Friday, Nov. 28. The reason for downloading was simple. The lower mountain didn't have enough snow to ski on yet.
For this winter, Whiteface expects to open sometime during the week before Thanksgiving, weather and conditions permitting. The week the helicopter flew, the Enterprise reported temperatures far too warm for snowmaking.
The plan works from the top down toward Bear Den
Kellett described the early-season plan to the Enterprise in August. Crews make snow up high first, then work down toward the Bear Den area and connect it back to the main base through Porcupine Pass. If only the upper mountain is ready, skiers ride the Face Lift down. He said the plan has been basically the same for three years, because the colder temperatures up high let crews make snow there early.
Under that plan, skiers keep downloading until the lower trails and the Bear Den link have enough snow on them.
Where the 16 fan guns landed
Fan guns make the most snow of any gun on the mountain. They don't use compressed air. A fast-spinning fan blows cold air through a ring of fine water nozzles, and the guns need a concrete base and a direct electrical feed. They work best on big, open stretches of trail. Thirteen of the 16 went to locations that had no fan gun before.
The Enterprise reported these locations:
- Where Upper Northway meets Lower Northway
- Niagara and Victoria
- Summit Express and Lower Empire
- Easy Way and Easy Street
- Easy Way and Hoyt's High
- Upper Parkway
- Around the Legacy Lodge, with several cannons
- The bottom of Draper's Drop, with several cannons
Kellett's August list also included Upper and Lower Valley and the spot where Draper's Drop meets Lower Valley.
Compare that with last year's opening-weekend trail list. Two locations touch summit terrain that opened early, at Lower Northway and Summit Express. The two spots with several cannons each, around the mid-mountain Legacy Lodge and the bottom of Draper's Drop, are away from every trail on last year's opening list. The Enterprise expects all 16 to run this season.
The 60 smaller guns save crew time
The other 60 new guns are fixed, low-energy units. They will go mainly on the Face trails: Upper Parkway, Upper Thruway, Mountain Run below 1900 Road, and Wilderness. Kellett says they run about 10 times more efficiently than the air-heavy guns they replace. They're the late stage of a project that started around 2020 with replacing roughly 50 miles of snowmaking pipe, much of it more than 40 years old.
Kellett told the Enterprise that the bigger gain is in staff hours:
"We save a ton of time starting, stopping and re-starting these trails now that we have this fixed equipment on it. The energy efficiency's substantially better, but the human efficiency is also substantially better so it's double the impact for us."
The trail called Wilmington shows what that means. It runs 2.1 miles and has 85 snow gun locations. With hoses, crews needed three days to drag everything into place before snowmaking and three more days to pull it out afterward. Kellett said that downtime would be a major obstacle in a choppy weather season and could keep crews off trails they could otherwise cover.
A cold spell in November is a short window. When the equipment is already in the ground, crews spend that window making snow instead of laying hose.
The new glade depends on natural snow
One addition this winter gets no machine-made snow. Whiteface plans a new black-diamond glade on Little Whiteface. It will start skier's left of the Little Whiteface Double's top station and run about 350 feet through the woods to the Approach trail, at a width of about 80 feet. The state Department of Environmental Conservation's regional director approved the work plan on Thursday, Oct. 22. It calls for selective removal of 273 trees, mostly balsam and white birch, with no grading. According to the Enterprise's report on the glade, Kellett expects the cutting in November so the glade is ready for ski season.
Like most glades, it relies entirely on natural snowfall. So its season depends on the storms, not the snowmaking schedule. The glade is also the first piece of a longer intermediate trail approved in Whiteface's 2022 unit management plan. Kellett described the new glade as temporary under that long-term plan.
Changes in the lodges
In his August interview, Kellett also described plans for the lodges and the fleet:
- Bear Den Lodge was set to move rentals to the end closest to the parking lot, put ticketing in the middle and take down the walls between those rooms. "It's just going to let people flow through the lodge better," Kellett said.
- Legacy Lodge at mid-mountain was getting self-checkout stations.
- The Main Base Lodge tuning shop was getting a new Wintersteiger Jupiter machine. Depending on traffic, Kellett said it can do a high-level tune in about 20 minutes.
- Season-long rental packages were planned for this winter.
- Two new snowcats were joining the fleet, and one old one was being retired.
Last year's opening weekend kept rentals, tuning and the apparel store open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. while the lower lifts were still closed. If that holds this year, the base lodge services could be ready before most of the trails are.
Two pass dates before the snow
Season pass holders have two dates to watch, and the first one is this Friday.
- Friday, Nov. 13. This is the last day to request a full credit on a 2026/27 season pass under Whiteface's Season Pass Assurance. You get a Snow Guarantee Card, not a refund, and it's good through Closing Day in spring 2028. If you've already used the pass, including passholder perks, the credit drops to 85%.
- Thursday, Dec. 3. Pass prices go up. The Adult SKI3 Full Season Pass goes from $1,119 to $1,259. The SKI3 Midweek Limited goes from $769 to $899, and the 70+ SKI3 Full Season Pass goes from $439 to $539. Whiteface's pass page doesn't list a rate for Wilmington or Essex County residents.
Fewer people are buying passes nationally, but more are buying them here. In the Enterprise's October report, early industry estimates put national season pass sales down 5% to 10%. ORDA's sales across its venues were up 6.5% through Oct. 5, at 25,918 passes. Whiteface accounted for 5,486, up 3% from the same point last year.
If you're new to Wilmington's winter, our Wilmington neighborhood page and our earlier piece on how fall here runs on winter's machinery explain how Whiteface shapes the rest of the town's calendar.
At Bob Miller Real Estate, we follow Whiteface's season as closely as the market around it. If you're comparing places near the mountain, or wondering how ski access affects what your own home is worth, contact Bob for a local market consult.
