US Ski Areas May Open For 19/20 Season This Weekend
US Ski Areas May Open For 19/20 Season This Weekend
Published : 09-Oct-2019 07:27
There's speculation (although as yet no official announcements) that ski areas in Colorado, and possibly elsewhere in the US, may open as soon as this Friday as a major cold front is forecast to bring heavy snow to the western side of the country, with Colorado and Utah looking like they'll see 30cm/a foot accumulations.
An 11th/12th October opening would be one of the earliest starts to the US ski season, but the start of this month has been cold and resorts including Arapahoe Basin, Loveland (pictured 48 hours ago above) and Keystone have all been making snow for over a week, and have published pictures of fairly complete looking ski runs ahead of the coming snowstorm.
There is also the added dimension of a battle for 'length of season' now between the two giant multi-area ski passes, Vail (which owns Keystone) and their epic p[ass, and the Alterra group which partners with Arapahoe Basin, that was formerly on the Epic pass but their season has switched to Alterra's Ikon pass.
Last year though another Colorado ski area, Wolf Creek, unexpectedly opened ahead of the more usual names.
The cold weather has also extended further East to the Midwest ad new England and ski areas like Killington in Vermont and Sunday river in Maine have also begun snowmaking And could also open even without natural snowfall in the next few weeks.
There are no real 'glacier ski areas' in North America as there are in Europe. Only Whistler operates glacier lifts but does not open them in summer (except for a short period over late spring/early summer) whilst Timberline in Oregon uses a year-round snowfield and seemingly could open now if they wanted to, but have said they won't do so until November.
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