Octobruary | October 23rd & 28th, 2016
I'm not sure if anything compares to the excitement I feel from the first snowfall. People often compare exciting events to Christmas day as a kid but I'm not even sure if that stacks up to it. The routine is the same every year leading up to the first day. You hear it from somebody somewhere then immediately scan every single weather report you can find and see if it's really true. Seeing that this was was the real deal I called up Devon and Kevin with a plan to send it up the toll road on Whiteface Mountain. We met up with our friend Josh in the morning and drove into winter.
Driving through the snow line is such an exciting part of first snowfall in the mountains. The valley in the Whiteface area and the town of Wilmington got a light dusting but as we drove up the road leading up to the toll road it change from fall to winter within a few feet. We realized there was enough snow at the bottom to skin all the way up which we were skeptical of initially.
The toll road was long, flat, and windy but having snow all around us made it okay. I expertly managed to wear very thick socks thinking that it will keep my feet warm only to remember that thick socks lead to blisters in my ski boots. After switching to thinner socks we carried on to a point in the road where it was too wind blown to ski over and prepared to go downhill.
The first couple of minutes was a struggle as we fought the wind the whole way down. Once we made it around a turn the wind worked in our favor and we flew down the road past all of the late risers working their way up the road. We hooted, hollered, (forgot to take the camera out) and slashed what little powder we found on the side of the five mile road.
At the bottom of the road we exchanged some high fives and took our gear off. Realizing that days like this one are a rarity, Kevin and I wanted to take full advantage of how photogenic it would be. With the clouds breaking and the sun coming out, it was clear we were going to get a few good shots.
We drove down to the base of Whiteface resort and were greeted by some beautiful post-peak foliage colliding with a wintery snow line. You could see exactly where the snow started falling as it made its way up the mountain. Afterwards we drove to Lake Placid for lunch, stopping by some scenic locations along the way. To wrap up the day, Devon got on his mountain bike and we shot a few photos before the light slipped past the mountain.
We got word that more snow would be falling in the higher elevations on night of the 27th into the next morning. Naturally I made a few calls to see who would be interested in playing hooky and heading into the mountains. Seeing that last week Stowe got roughly 11 inches up top and had been blasting their snow guns all week I decided that would be the ideal destination. As always, Kevin was down for an early morning to head over there before it warmed up.
The drive over to Vermont made us very unsure of what we would find. We encountered rain the entire drive up to the mountain. Suddenly in the last mile to the resort we drove right into winter just as we did the week before. There was still some freezing rain at the base but that quickly turned to snow as we started to ascend.
By about halfway up the mountain it was dumping. Fat flakes were falling so heavily I didn't want to take my camera out in fear of water damage. We reached the top of the resort with a big grin on our faces and looked around in awe at how wintery this October was. The snow near the top was fluffy and deep and made for great turns especially for this time of the year. The fluff turned to mush as we reached the bottom but hey, it was still skiing.
Photo by Kevin McAvey