Whiteface Is Planning a New High-Speed Lift and Trails for Future Seasons. Here Are Our Initial Thoughts.

Background

Whiteface is planning a series of major upgrades in the coming seasons, as evidenced by new documents released by New York’s Adirondack Park Agency. Plans include a new lift, new trails, and the widening of some existing trails. The resort is making these investments in preparation of hosting the World University Games, a premier student-athlete competition event, in 2023.

The proposed new lift will live in an entirely new alignment and extend from the Bear Den base to the mid-mountain Legacy Lodge. Two alignments have been put forward: a primary option, which would require an angle mid-station but cross over many existing trails, and an alternative option, which would feature a straight lift line but require more tree cutting to construct. It’s more than likely Whiteface will go with the primary option, given a state-imposed limit on how many trails the resort can cut down.

The three new trails—provisionally named Trail 93, Yellow Dot, and High Country Road—would be constructed across various mountain areas. Trail 93 would be under the lift line of the new Bear Den lift, while the other two would be in upper-mountain areas. The following trails are also set to receive widening:

• Upper Thruway

• Upper Parkway

• Lower Thruway

• Burton’s Trail

• Wildway

• 2200 Road

• Danny’s Bridge

• Brookside

These plans are all preliminary in nature and subject to public comment, but if approved, the resort hopes to start work on the projects in summer 2022. The public comment period began on October 27; comments can be submitted through this link.

A detailed diagram from Whiteface of the draft plan. The proposed trail changes are in green, while the proposed Bear Den lift is in red.

Lift Upgrade

One of Whiteface’s key weaknesses is its main base lift setup; lines can get really long during peak times, especially on windy days when gondola operations are hindered. The new lift won’t directly increase capacity at the main base, but it should shift considerable traffic to Bear Den, therefore relieving the crowds at the gondola and Face Lift. But perhaps even more importantly, the new lift will provide direct access to the mid-mountain lodge, solving a major logistical issue with the resort; currently, the only lift routes to this lodge go too far up and out of the way. This investment, along with the existing Little Whiteface chair, should provide a reasonably desirable alternative to the gondola for getting up Little Whiteface.

It’s clear that these investments were made with the 2023 events in mind. Several other resort areas are still subject to slow, fixed-grip lift service, and could use high-speed upgrades just as much as—if not more than—the Bear Den base. But the new lift proposed here will play a major role in Whiteface’s summer mountain biking park and World University Games events, hence the likely prioritization.

Trail Investments

To go along with the new lift, it looks like a few trail upgrades are proposed to make the Bear Den area more desirable to get to. The resort currently plans one new trail after nixing two others in initial blueprints, as well as the widening of other trails in the vicinity. These changes may allow guests to more easily find the area, but they’ll likely also detract from the beginner-centric nature of the base. The widening of the Danny’s Bridge and Brookside trails also portends investments into Whiteface’s terrain park, which as of now is decent enough but nowhere near the best in the East.

Other trail upgrades are set to solve two logistical issues: the inability to access upper-mountain lifts from the Mountain Run lift and Little Whiteface mid-station, and the inability to access the Summit-serviced Lower Skyward trail from the gondola. The new High Country Road trail will finally provide the link to the former, and the widening of the 2200 Road trail should assist with the expected increase in traffic. The new Yellow Dot trail will offer the connection for the latter; we wouldn’t be surprised if the Lower Skyward trail, which is mellow for a black, is rebranded as an intermediate trail as part of the change as well.

The remaining trail widening projects are mainly related to race training and likely won’t affect the experience for most visitors, although we wouldn’t be surprised to see some returning guests feign disappointment at the alteration of some decently iconic trails.

Verdict

While it’s clear they were planned with a competition event in mind, the upgrades put forward as part of this plan have the potential to address several Whiteface issues, including lower-mountain crowding bottlenecks and annoying trail logistics. However, some issues, including slow upper-mountain lifts, have been left unaddressed. And there’s pretty much nothing resort management can do to address the mountain’s horrendous wind exposure brought about by Mother Nature. It’s also possible these plans will be altered or cancelled altogether depending on reactions during the public comment period.

Ultimately, we expect these investments to bring about an incremental improvement to Whiteface’s overall experience, rather than a radical transformation. We look forward to returning to the mountain once the upgrades are complete to assess for ourselves.

Considering a trip to Whiteface? Check out our comprehensive mountain review, and see how the resort stacks up in our East Coast rankings.