High Noon Looks Good

I have received a few good questions over the last 24 hours. We will be open 7 days a week until June. This is going to be an extremely good opening. I walked High Noon this morning (I should have skied it and will ski it this afternoon). The coverage is really good. We are pulling about half of the fan guns and moving them to Ramrod. We will make a little bit more snow on High Noon. Year after year we track quantitative snowmaking metrics and have a very good sense of how to correlate that data and apply it to opening decisions. So.. in addition to thinking the trail looks good, we know we have made the amount of snow required for a good opening. Not just a good opening, but a great opening that will last. Come on up. You'll love it. We are already talking about working on Ramrod.

Elgee, I'll see you tomorrow or call me at the office today.

Opening Thursday

We are opening tomorrow, Thursday, October 13 at 9 AM. Black Mountain Express, High Noon, and the Banana Terrain Park will be open. See you there.

Snowcats, Snowmaking, and Opening

Nice photo by Dave Camara this morning. The snowcats were all over the hill today. Looking good. Getting pretty close to decision time.

Goats On The Summit

Paul Nichol plucked this shot of the mountain goats off our Snow Plume Refuge webcam.

We Are Very Close

I just walked High Noon with Tim, Mark, and Peggy. Looking really good. The coverage is almost there. We need to make a little bit more snow. Tuesday and Wednesday we will have the snowcats dozing and grooming the snow in prepartion for opening. We have not announced an opening day, but it will be soon. Please pay close attention to the website for an announcement. Hopefully we can make something happen this week.

Snow and Snowmaking

Although I did not get an exact measurement, I think we got about 8" of new snow. In terms of snowmaking, we have made 60-70% of the snow required to open. The forecast looks good for snowmaking Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights. We will keep a close eye on that.

We have not decided on an opening day yet, but "I PROMISE" that as soon as we know we will spread the word. There are no secrets here, we just have to let Mother Nature and snowmaking play their cards. We will open as soon as we can.

WOW!!!!!

Just walked High Noon with Mark LaFlamme, the Snowmaking Manager. Wow, I was impressed. 21 degress F. All 19 fan guns are running. The creek is still high. There is still water in the reservoir. Looks like tonight will be another cold night. Time to start gathering your gear. The forecast looks great through Monday morning. It is time to be REALLY, REALLY EXCITED.

Good Snowmaking

Just listened to my morning snowmaking message from Brendan. They had a very good night. We are pummping at 100% capacity right now. With this forecast we hope to keep making snow, uninterrupted, until at least some time Monday. When operating at top capacity we convert about 1,000 gallons of water into snow per minute or about 60,000 gallons per hour. These are good, cold conditions with temperatures in the teens. When it is warmer, we convert water to snow at a lower rate. That said, during the opening process, we typically have some great nights, some OK nights, and some marginal nights. If the temps, reservoir levels, and streamflows are good, we can open in less than a week. If we have a few OK or marginal nights in the mix, it can take us longer.

No predictions on opening yet. Let's see how the next 4-5 days go. These weather conditions are something to be very excited about.

Kudos to Wolf Creek. I just looked at their webcams and the conditions look great. You should head down there today or tomorrow and get some riding in. We'll get the Basin open for you soon.