More US Ski Areas Opening

Two more Colorado ski areas will open this weekend, joining Wolf Creek, which was the first in North America to open with natural snowfall nearly a fortnight ago.

Arapahoe Basin Ski Area has announced it will open this Saturday, November 2 at 8:30am, whilst Keystone will be just behind it, opening at 9am.

“The Snowmakers have continued to have great success both day and night. Snowcat Operator Extraordinaire, Scott Buell, has been in for a couple of days working his magic with snow. The Ski Patrol and Lift teams are outfitted and ready to go. We still have some more snow to make and Scott will be busy up until Saturday morning, but it is time to kick off ski season. Cheers to another great winter,” a spokesperson for Arapahoe Basin said.

The centres opening follows a switch from unseasonably warm weather last weekend to very cold and sometimes snowy weather over the past few days. Lows down to 10F were recorded and centres have reported up to 12” (30cm) of snowfall.

Keystone report they have hit their target of being able to offer over two miles (3km) of skiable terrain from their opening day.

Skiing and riding will be on Schoolmarm and Silver Spoon trails, plus a learning area on our Kokomo Carpet and a hike-to terrain park at the top of Spring Dipper. Skiers will be able to lap the Montezuma Chair from 9am – 4pm before downloading back to our base via the River Run Gondola. 

“Thank you to our incredible teams across the resort for making this possible and thank you to everyone who put ice cubes in their toilets or trail maps in their freezer over the past week!” a spokesperson said.

It seems likely more centres will announce opening dates over the next few days. Snowfall has been reported across US slopes from coast to coast and Sunday River in Maine opened limited experts only terrain for experts only on Halloween (pictured below), although it has closed again now ahead of its full season opening. You can also ski already at ski ward in Massachusetts on a small area of snow made with an all-weather snowmaking machine.  Breckenridge and Copper Mountain plan to open in a weeks’ time.

However Canada’s ski season, expected to start on Saturday at Banff Norquay, has been set back a week, the centre has announced. It will open now at the same time as the scheduled openings for other Banff area resorts sunshine and Lake Louise as well as Nakiska, the closest area to Calgary and Marmot Basin up near Jasper.