Skilifts.org / SORT Forum

Brighton opened today

http://kutv.com/tops..._319133013.html

KUTV TV news announced:

Most Of Utah Ski Resorts Will Open By The Weekend

(KUTV) Known for having the "greatest snow on Earth," most of Utah's ski resorts will be open by the end of the weekend.

Brighton Ski Resort opened some of its lifts on Wednesday, becoming the first resort in Utah to open for the 2006-2007 ski season.

The following are scheduled opening dates for Utah's remaining ski resorts: (click to visit website)

Alta: Monday, November 18
Beaver: TBA
Brian Head: Friday, November 22
Brighton: Open
The Canyons: Monday, November 18
Deer Valley: Saturday, December 2
Park City: Friday, November 17
Powder Mountain: TBA
Snowbasin: Saturday, November 23
Snowbird: Saturday, November 18
Solitude: Friday, November 17
Sundance: Friday, December 8
Wolf Mountain: Sunday, November 24

(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
This post has been edited by Skiing#1: 15 November 2006 - 01:38 PM

Man - at this point, Brian Head is hoping for a 22 Nov opening. Maw Nature has not been kind to us so far this year. Maybe we need to do the "Ski Dubai" thing (shouldn't cost much more than Snomax)..



On the other hand - when I first entered this quirky industry, a Thanksgiving opening was considered a gift.

Buck Hill is having a really hard time making snow recently because of warmer temps during the day. It is nice and cold at night but these last few days have still been quite warm. We could use some cold weather.

Quote

Today Solitude and Park City open.

http://www.ksl.com/?...=148&sid=650217

More Ski Resorts Open Today

November 16th, 2006 @ 6:57am

(KSL News) Today Solitude and Park City Mountain Resort will fall in line with Brighton for an early ski season opening.

Brighton was the first to fire up its chair lifts, opening its slopes yesterday to about 13-hundred people.

This Saturday Alta, Snowbird and the Canyons can be added to the list. Brian Head will follow next week.

Others will open by Thanksgiving or early December.


Desert News:

http://deseretnews.c...0207408,00.html

Ski resorts are open — on time

By Ray Grass

Deseret Morning News

The 2006-07 ski season is open — on time and with snow.

Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Morning NewsA snowboarder grinds on a small box during 2006's opening day of skiing at Brighton Ski Resort. Brighton, the resort that traditionally is the first to run its lifts, opened early Wednesday. Two more resorts — Park City Mountain Resort and Solitude — opened today.

Saturday, Snowbird, Alta and The Canyons will start selling tickets, and Brian Head is scheduled to open on Wednesday.
This is not the earliest opening for Brighton, but it will be a good one, said Randy Doyle, area manager. The resort is reporting a firm base of 46 inches.
In recent years, the week prior to Thanksgiving has been good for Utah resorts.
Alta, for example, has opened on Nov. 18 for three of the past four years. Brighton opened Nov. 17 in 2005-06 and now the 16th. Snowbird set the 18th as its target date, and said Laura Schaffer, public relations director, "We hit it perfectly, which we haven't been able to do the past few years."
Some of the other resorts are waiting for "a little more snow." Others, like Deer Valley, have set traditional opening dates and stick with them, no matter the snow depth.
This year Deer Valley will open Dec. 2.
The series of storms that have hit Utah the past couple of weeks haven't left great depths, but all combined have left more than enough snow to allow resorts to open.
Schaffer noted the resort has received 40 inches of snow in November, "with 38 of those since Nov. 9. This last storm left 16 inches, which, for us, was perfect timing."
This last storm, said Doyle, left behind a good, heavy snow covering that when mixed with man-made snow helped make a good, firm base.
Brighton opened Millicent, Explorer and Crescent lifts.
Connie Marshall, director of public relations at Alta, said Saturday's opening will be "typical Alta ... with more than just a few lifts and more than just a few runs."
Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Morning NewsA snowboarder waits at the top of a hill for his friends during the opening day of skiing at Brighton Wednesday. Brighton was the first resort to open again this year. A decision has not been made yet on just how many lifts will be open, but Marshall said, "At least three and maybe more, depending on how much of the mountain we can get ready."
The earliest opening for Alta was Oct. 10 for the 2003-04 season. Alta has a mid-mountain snow depth of 33 inches. Thus far this winter it has received 58 inches of snow.
This will be an early opening for Park City. For the previous two years the resort opened one day before Thanksgiving.
Saturday it will have the PayDay lift running, as well as First Time for beginning skiers.
"Being able to open this early," said Krista Parry, marketing and public relations director, "is magical for us. It gets all the employees and skiers excited. There's a real sense of excitement building going into the ski season."
The Canyons will open its gondola, Saddleback and High Meadow lifts, and the surface rope tow near the base.
Because all of the lifts and terrain will not be open, resorts will be offering discounted passes. They will also be working to open more terrain as soon as possible.
Last season was the third in a string of records for Utah. The 13 resorts recorded more than 4 million skier days. And, for the second year in a row, Utah's high-elevation resorts accounted for more than 600 inches of total snowfall. The season average at Alta and Snowbird is 500 inches.

SKI SCHOOL
The first session of the Deseret Morning News/KSL Radio Ski/Snowboard School will be at Alta and Snowbird on Saturday.
Classes will start at 9:30 a.m. Skiers will be at Alta, and snowboarders will be at Snowbird. Classes will run for two hours.
Students will need to dress for winterlike conditions, bring their ski or snowboard equipment, and their ski or snowboard tag.


Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Morning NewsSnowboarders and skiers ride the lift as snow-making equipment operates during the opening day of skiing this year at Brighton Ski Resort. Brighton reported a firm base of 46 inches of snow so far. Registration closed Wednesday evening.
This post has been edited by Skiing#1: 16 November 2006 - 08:37 AM

For all you eastern skiers who didn't ski CT when it was open, I called Sugarbush today and they are hoping (read crossing their fingers) to have skiing on the Summit Quad at Mt. Ellen starting on Monday. Just a little heads up for my fellow east coast skiers.

Marmot Basin in Jasper is opening November 17 - the earliest opening ever!

We continue to open terrain- Timberline Express yesterday with all runs except the liftline. Not sure what's next but patrol has been hitting up S-lift pretty hard, and Slopes has B-lift covered with guns 'n' hoses (not to mention winch cats).

Vail has 9 lifts and a bunch of runs on the front side.

Winter continues to avoid us at Brian Head - it's even been difficult to cultivate snow. It's nice to have a little extra time to finish up maintenance projects - but the CFO is getting hard to live with.

Emax, on Nov 19 2006, 10:13 AM, said:

78 degrees today ?

mikest2, on Nov 19 2006, 12:26 PM, said:

41 degrees here in MN today but no snow til late in the season.

Sun Valley has been a bit too warm for snowmaking during the day, except maybe the top of the mountain. But from the looks of it we will have enough snow for thursday. we are still praying to the snow gods here in sun valley.

SVmech17, on Nov 19 2006, 03:52 PM, said:

Yeah, I work snowmaking over at Dollar. We've had like 3 GREAT nights the last couple of weeks, and a lot of sucky temps the rest. Still, we're looking good for Thanksgiving.

Finally, a real eastern ski resort is opening for the season here in New England. Sugarloaf will be open tomorrow with 3 trails and 1 lift. http://www.sugarloaf.com I won't be able to be there unfortunately as it's a 4 hour ride to get to Sugarloaf. Fortunately many other ski areas are supposed to open up by Turkey day, though the temperatures are supposed to rise again before then.

mikest2, on Nov 19 2006, 03:26 PM, said:

Wow, it was 52 down here yesterday

Not a whole lot of snow in Utah yet, Alta and the other Cottonwood resorts have a bunch more snow than the Park City resorts, as usual, and PCMR and The Canyons are both open with only a couple runs. The Canyons is advertising 5 lifts open! but on closer inspection: Cabriolet (parking lot lift), Flight (access gondola), Sweet Pea (beginner platter pull), High Meadow (beginner quad), and Saddleback (only real main lift HSQ). DV is holding out till the first weekend in December as usual

I noticed that Saddleback was painted red as well this summer, along with the 2 new lifts and Daybreak. The gondola is still green though.

Keystone is proposing the opening of North Peak tomorrow, I havent been over there yet but we are looking good for this busy week.

Went to Copper Mtn yesterday, not bad considering how warm it is getting (thankfully not warm enough to turn the snow to slush). Am Flyer and Timberline (I&J) were open and the trails off Timberline were probably in the best condition. The trail under the lift was open and had small moguls which were fun especially since the Exellerater chair was mostly taken over by race camps and much to my annoyance, when I rode to the top of Storm King and came down and thought I could continue down a mogul field on the skiers right on Hallelujah (as I have the past two Mondays!) and a rope was pulled accross forcing skiers and boarders to traverse uphill to Mine Dump and continue down. The reason- Ptarmagin is now closed for race training including another run I don't know the name of (you can see it immediately when you ride up Excellerator) and part of Main Vein, part of Carefree (the only green leading to the base of the flyer) with very high traffic (not yet of Keystone magnitude but close). This will not make a good impression on the Thanksgiving tourists coming in for the holiday weekend. I realize racers need to train but I don't think the paying public need to be crowded off the mountain because of it! Anyway, back to topic, not much activity by Super B. R & S remain closed (but have spiffy new Garaventa CTEC triple chairs on them replacing the Yan chairs). Looks like another warm day today (which is weather I am really getting sick of) and possibly snow moving in slowly but hopefully surely after that.

Beaver Creek opens today with 4 chairlifts.

Heavenly is shooting for tomorrow if weather permits.
This post has been edited by Lift Kid: 22 November 2006 - 06:35 AM