Monday is Opening Day

Finally, it is here. We will be opening for the 2010-11 Season Monday, October 25. We had a better than expected night snowmaking. I also just brushed 7" of snow off the new snow stake. Tim, Mark, and I just walked the trail. Looking good. We look forward to good snowmaking Saturday and Sunday nights. The cats will be all over the trail Sunday getting it ready. October sure seemed to drag on with all that miserable and beautiful weather, but winter is roaring at Arapahoe Basin right now. With good streamflows, a nearly full reservoir, and a cold forecast, I expect we will be expanding terrain rapidly.

My friends over at Loveland have also been cranking away. They are going to open tomorrow, Sunday. My hat is off to them. I encourage you to loosen up and make a few turns at Loveland on Sunday and be ready to rip it up at The Basin on Monday. Thanks for all your patience. Let the fun begin.

Black Mountain Express Quesions

I have had a couple of really good questions about crowding early season trails with the new lift. Great questions and easy to answer. Simply, in the beginning of the season, we will turn the lift speed down a little bit so the number of people unloading the chair will be about the same as it was with Exhibition Lift.

Without sounding too much like a techie "lift nerd" there are a few concepts to understand. A lift has a design capacity and it has actual realized capacity. Old Exhibition had a design capacity of 1800 people per hour. In the very early season, Exhbition riders are very experienced lift users. We rarely hit a slow or stop button due to skier error. During that time of year actual realized capacity was about 1700-1800 people per hour. Black Mountain Express has a design capacity of 2000 people per hour. We will simply turn the lift speed down to 85-90% (1700-1800 people per hour) and the number of people on the trail will be just about the same.

Now the real benefit of Black Mountain Express will come into play once we are past these first few weeks of the season. Once more terrain and lifts are open, the more experienced skiers spread out around the mountain. Old Exhibition and, now, Black Mountain priamrily serve green and blue skiers. These riders are often just learning how to ski and require more slows and stops with the lift. Because of these slows and stops the actual realized capacity on Exhbition was closer to 1300 people per hour. Because detachable lifts are so much easier to load and unload for people learning to ski, we anticipate way fewer stops and slows. Because of this, we hope to see an actual realized capacity of 1700-2000 people per hour. Plus, the ride will be only 3 minutes. I think people will like that. All those slows and stops tend to drive me nuts. We think the new lift will be much nicer.

That was a little long. Hopefully, a few of you like that kind of detail. For the rest of you, sorry and I hope I didn't put you to sleep.

Response to Anonymous

Whoa, I thought long and hard about how to or if I should respond to the comment from Anonymous. Here are some thoughts. About 50 times per day I am asked, "when are you opening?" The answer is, "I don't know." I always try and share the best information I have available at the time. We look at how much snow we need to make, how much we have made, and what the forecast says. It is very hard to predict. I do the best I can here and also try and point out the cool things going on. A week ago we had a very promising forecast that failed to materialize. I was excited and, like most of you guys, was disappointed when it fell through. Had late September and October been at all close to normal for temperatures, we would have been open for a week or more by now. If I would have followed the suggestion of saying, "Hey, we're probably at least a week away...." I would have been lying. For a while I have thought we were less than a week away. The weather has given us a couple of dashed hopes. When you deal with the weather every day, you learn to understand and accept that. Nobody around here is trying to mislead anybody. We are being truthful and trying to spread the good word about Arapahoe Basin. Let's keep this fun. Last year we managed to open October 9. This year it looks like late October. Sometimes the weather throws you the dice in a way you don't expect. I am excited about being open soon. I know you guys will have a great time. Our progress is moving along. My fingers are crossed that this forecast is the one. I am not only looking forward to High Noon opening, I look forward to those first face shots a few weeks down the road. Trust me, no one wants to be open more than me.

Snowcat Has Been Working

Last night was a little discouraging for snowmaking. Warm temps and high humidity. We do have some good news. The snowcat has been out pushing snow. The upper portion looks pretty good and we connected all the snow top to bottom. Over the weekend and Monday the forecasted weather looks to improve dramatically. It looks that it will get really cold and snow.

No News Yet

I know you guys are jonesing for the word on opening, but the snow isn't quite there yet. I promise that when I know, you will know. We spent the afternoon looking at opening from every possible angle. In the end, we realized we need a bit more snow to have a good opening. Sorry, I know that isn't the news you want, but I think everyone will be happier with a good opening versus a scratchy open. Patience grasshopper.

Another Great Night

I just walked High Noon with the Snowmaking Crew. Great night. Actually, it was the best snowmaking night of the week. We are getting close. In terms of volume of snow required to open, we are 70-80 % of the way there. The upper half of High Noon is ready to go. The lower half still needs a bit more snow. Tonight we are putting the snowcat on the hill and will begin to push out the upper piles. Be sure to check out the snowmaking page of the website for even more photos and video. Hope you enjoy these photos. I think one of the coolest views and photos opportunities occurs just as the sun breaks the East Wall ridge and hits the snowmaking plumes.

Stay tuned. We may have a little surprise in store for you.

Snowmaking

More snowmaking photos from High Noon.

Looks Good

I think the snow on High Noon looks pretty good.