No snow

[Vailsteve]

Man, where is the snow? It is Wednesday November 4th and it’s 57 degrees outside here in Vail—and we are supposed to open in 16 days. Hiked to the bottom of Chair 2 this morning ...some snow but the snow makers have a long way to go...

Oh well. It was a great day to drain and clean the hot tub. It is now ready for the winter. Old, creaky legs, and now a creaky back, will certainly appreciate a hot soak.

Also, Al’s Blog webpage shows some decent snow on High Noon, But there is no opening date listed for A Basin.

Supposed to get a good dump beginning Sunday. Fingers crossed. Ready to ski!!

[breezer]

I don’t want to gloat ... but Lake Louise has opened. It was great to get out and back on the skis! We had a stretch of cold weather and the snowmaking on the frontside kicked in ... now we just need Mother Nature to fill in the rest! Have a great season down in Colorado!

[Vailsteve]

Gloat away Breezer. You deserve it <grin>!

I drove to A Basin this morning to pick up my new season pass - with a RF chip embedded...finally after how many years that this technology has been around?? No more having to fish your pass out of your pocket!

Anyway, glad A Basin is moving into the modern age...

I did check out the snow on High Noon ..it is not the best...manmade snow...maybe skiable, but the whole mountain is really really thin. Not quite as bad as Vail though...

FWIW, Vail can get selected runs open like Born Free in 3-5 days with good snowmaking temps...

Hopefully this weekend will change things....one good dump and we too may be off to the races!

[breezer]

Patience is a good thing they say! We will all be on skis soon ... it’s gonna be a great season!

[ErikCO]

I think the snow gods are getting back at us for a couple of years of fairly early openings and late closings! Things are looking good for this weekend and early next week so I expect we will see openings at Loveland and A-Basin within another 7-10 days.

[tigernbr]

Looks like the weather pattern is changing and CO should see more snow over the next 10 days or so.

[midwif]

Thanks for update.
I was just going to ask about ski conditions.
Saw a pic of Keystone that looked great.
Probably staged for maximum effect.
Hoping to ski the epic pass resorts '21.
Have been giving up on the northeast ( home) as the warming continues and conditions become increasingly unreliable here.
L.

[j_unruh@hotmail.com]

I skied Keystone on the afternoon of the opening day, last Friday. There was really one run from the top of the frontside to the turnoff for the Montezuma lift. I think there were two ways to the bottom from there.

The snowmakers did a great job given the warm and exceptionally dry weather in October. There was enough snow on the open run, and it wasn't too terribly hard. The last pitch to the bottom was pretty nice.

The reservation system made it better than I expected on crowding, but it was still pretty bad from noon until one. The crowds went down after that. There weren't really any lift lines, and there wasn't a problem with not running full chairs. Really, all the crowding was on the run. Mask discipline was good on the mountain and on the lifts. Not as good walking through the village, and poor in the parking lot.

We had snow since, and it is snowing today, so it should be better. It is supposed to be a lot colder this week, which should help.

On the negative side, despite the efforts of the snow safety team, there were still the Keystone crazies who felt the need to ski/ride fast slaloming fast through the crowds on a very busy green run.

Breck is supposed to open on Friday.

The virus numbers in CO and in Summit County aren't good, so we will have to see what happens.