The US 24-25 ski season will get underway later today thanks to cold weather and fresh snowfall arriving across mountain ranges in the north and west of the country over the past four days.
Wolf Creek in southern Colorado (pictured top) is expected to be the first to open at 9am, having announced their plan to late on Sunday. However in past Octobers other ski areas have snuck in to open a few minutes earlier in order top claim ‘first in the US’ title.
Wolf Creek did particularly well from weekend storms collection 21″ (53cm) of snowfall and will open about a third of its terrain from 9am today, with four lifts running.
Among the other Colorado contenders to be the first, Arapahoe Basin, which reported another 9″ (22cm) on Monday said things are looking good but it hasn’t got an opening date to give yet. The same is true for Copper (pictured above), Keystone (pictured below) and Loveland.
After a warmer than usual October until late last week, temperatures dropped and snowmaking systems fired up on Friday. Several fronts moved in with heavy snowfall into the weekend then again at the start of this week with snow over a wide area including as far south as the mountains of Arizona and New Mexico (Taos pictured bottom).
After the current cold and snowy weather, temperatures are expected to warm up again for the rest of this week, with a return of sunny conditions, but overnight lows on high slopes will continue to drop below freezing.
Most major US and Canadian resorts that can do will open over the next four weeks, ahead of the Thanksgiving long holiday weekend in late November.
