Sketchy Start to the North American Ski Season

For skiers and snowboarders, the ideal winter would be one with cold weather for snowmaking through all of November, with real snow starting to fall on top of that just before Thanksgiving and enough natural snow all season long for wonderful spring conditions -- in New England and elsewhere in the Northeast and Quebec, the upper Midwest, the Rockies, the Sierra Nevada and other West Coast ranges and the Alps. There's hardly ever a winter like that. This year, Thanksgiving is on the 22nd, which is as early as it can possibly be, eliminating up to a week of wiggle room for snowmaking or real snow.

Last winter, snow in the Alps was frighteningly sparse, as it was in much of North America;'s snowbelt -- the Rockies being a notable exception. Things have flipped this year. The snow gods have smiled on the Alps so far this season. It is somewhat surprising that the low-elevation Kitzbühel Alpen group of mountains has enough natural snow to open at least 30 cable cars and lifts this weekend (groomer at work, right, in a photo taken on November 15). In fact, the Resterhöhe near Kitzbühel launched the season on November 2, which is very early indeed.


This year, with the exception of trails with ribbons of machine-made snow, much of the US West is still bare, and many resorts have postponed their opening dates. In Colorado, Eldora, Steamboat and Vail won't be open until December. Taos, NM, has pushed the season start back to mid-December. Even Grand Targhee, WY, has pushed back its season start date. In Utah, only Solitude is operating with two out of 64 runs open. Snowbasin intends to open for Thanksgiving and Sundance on December 7. No other resort has committed to an opening date. Colorado areas report how many lifts and what percentage of green circle, blue square and black diamond terrain is open rather than the number of runs. Among them, the seven areas within two hours of metro Denver plus Wolf Creek are running a total of 18 lifts among them.

In Vermont, Killington, Mount Snow and Okemo are open with four lifts each running. In New Hampshire, Bretton Woods was the first to open, and Attitash and Waterville Valley are cranking up this weekend.

Three notable North American exceptions are Whistler, BC; Banff/Lake Louise, AL, and Alyeska, near Anchorage. Whistler is opening on November 17 with two gondolas and three upper-mountain chairs and cautions about early-season conditions. Adjacent Blackcomb (some owner, joint lift ticket) opens November 22. Of thre three Banff/Lake Louise ski areas, Sunshine is the "most open," with the eight-passenger access gondola, five chairlifts, two moving carpets and 50 runs. Alyeska has logged 130 inches of since since November 1. Currently, the upper mountain boasts 84 inches of snowpack, midway has 48 inches and the base 22 inches. This winter could be on pace to break last year's all-time record over 28 inches of snow in December alone and 668 inches for the season, making Alyeska Resort one of the few with over 600 inches of annual snow.