Yesterday blog's received a great question. Which will open first Beavers or Montezuma Bowl?
For now let's skip this season and move on to 2018-19. Once The Beavers Chairlift is running, The Beavers will probably open after Pali Lift opens and before Montezuma Bowl opens. The Steep Gullies will open sometime later. The Beavers and The Steep Gullies will be managed as two very separate areas. With the lift, The Beavers can open separately from The Steep Gullies and, most likely before Montezuma. The Beavers face predominantly North, receive very good snowfall and have some relatively smooth terrain surfaces.
The 2017-18 season has some unique challenges without the chairlift. The opening of The Beavers will be much more closely linked to The Steep Gullies. All the skier traffic from The Beavers will traverse across the toes of The Steep Gullies. The Steep Gullies don't have to be open for The Beavers to open, but our Snow Safety Team needs to be comfortable with allowing people to cross those run out zones. Without a chairlift this season, the process will be slower. So, back to the original question, for the 2017-18, I am not sure which of the areas (Beavers and Zuma) will open first. We will be pushing to open both of them as soon as we can.
The Steep Gullies opening will be unaffected by The Beavers opening.
Montezuma Bowl has been open 10 years now. Over time, we have learned many tricks about managing the snow and speeding up its opening. We will take those lessons to The Beavers and The Steeps Gullies and, certainly, learn a few more. Over time, I suspect we will open the terrain more quickly.
