More and More Good Skiing

I had a wonderful day skiing. Headed out to The Beavers and skied Loafer, Davis and Jaeger. Beautiful. There could be some more terrain brewing West of Loafer. There is an additional 100 acres out there that we did not open last year.  Maybe we will start calling that the Western Territory. It is moderately steep, rolling, gladed terrain..........and very fun.

We had about an inch of snow during the day. Kay and I just skinned up to The Summit through heavy snowfall. We skied down in at least couple more inches. Very soft and sweet. The skiing will be exceptional in the morning.

Beavers' Snow Conditions

Snow conditions in The Beavers were pretty darn good this morning (actually all day long).

Getting Rolling In Zuma Bowl

Zuma Bowl has fared well with all this snow. Our snowfences are phat with snow. The cat drivers have been down Columbine getting close to Tower 14. They have also been out Zuma Cornice. Prior to the 22" inch storm, the snow safety crew and cat drivers had used the Disruption Roller in West Zuma. The Ski Patrol has done extensive explosive work in West Zuma. The Winter Trail Crew is moving and wrestling with the buried fences. With unsettled weather beginning tomorrow, we will get Zuma shaped up quickly.

Grooming Loafer and Davis

Loafer and Davis will be groomed on a regular basis. At this point they are not groomed all the way to the bottom of the lift. That should happen with the next week or so. Using the winch cats, our drivers are working their way down these trails. They will be leap frogging their way down from winch anchor to winch anchor. That will give us two groomed, challenging blue trails with lots of black skiing on either side of them.

Just as an aside, you can see some smoke in the top right hand corner of this picture. Across Highway 6 from Keystone, the Forest Service is burning some slash piles. Those piles came from dead lodgepole pines killed by the mountain pine beetle.

Opening Day

We ended up with a nearly perfect opening day. There wasn't a cloud in the bluebird sky. The skiing and riding was fantastic. We ended opening Loafer, Davis, Jaeger, Thick and Thin, East Woods and Castor.  I think just about everyone out there had a terrific day.

.......And there is more to come !!!!

Beavers Opens Monday

This weekend's 22 inches of snow has been a real treat. The Beavers terrain and chairlift will open Monday mid-morning. We will start with Loafer. As the day progresses, we will likely get some of the Dog Woods open. Sometime later tomorrow you should see Davis (and maybe a few more gladed trails) get open.

We definitely got buried by this storm. It has been a great deal of work getting all the puzzle pieces together. Lots and lots of shoveling. Be sure and thank your favorite lift op, lift mechanic, cat driver and ski patroller next time you see them. They have had some long, long days getting the Beavers ready.

On top of this great news, we had a limited opening on Pali Face and The Spine today. That should happen again tomorrow around the middle of the day.

I am just beside myself with all this fun.

Lower International

Lower International sure skied nicely Saturday.

Tough Photography Conditions

When it is snowing this hard and the snow is this deep, it is hard to capture good images.

We had a very good Pali Lift opening day. In addition to great skiing on Slalom Slope, some people were able to make some turns on Standard and 13 Cornices. It was deep everywhere.

I did ski Loafer and spent some time at the bottom of The Beavers Lift. There is plenty of snow now to get The Beavers open. We do have a TON of work to do to get that area open.  We are working hard at it. I suspect you will see some new terrain opening every day for the next several days.