15 December 2016 — Lara Gut fastest in womens World Cup DH training session yesterday in Val d’Isere…Good temps in the Appalachian highlands enabled Snowshoe WV to get more terrain open the past few days, including the popular Cupp Run…New Hampshire’s Attitash has confirmed a Friday opening, they’ll have over a half dozen routes down with both the main mountain and Bear Peak connected. Why so much at once? Well one of the head scratchers from the American Skiing Company days was that they built their flagship hotel over at the Bear Peak base, so when they sell ski-in/ski-out lodging they gotta open Bear. Unfortunately virtually all other operations are based 3/4 miles away at the old Attitash base. So, deal is, they gotta go big or stay home. Since Peak Resorts took over, they go big…despite complaints and cancellations in Colorado, Arapahoe Basin now has enough snow to get the Pallavicini chair running, they have quite a few runs off that but not the namesake yet…reopening Friday at Caberfae in Michigan, also doing $9 tix for college kids. For the rest of us, if you use this link to Liftopia you can score $17 tix…neglected to report that Wyoming’s Grand Targhee fired up their new Blackfoot lift this past weekend. while they were at it, they also decided to spin the Sacajawea lift and became the first big U.S. resort to be 100% open, all on a healthy 66″ base…on the subject of Peak Resorts, Jack Frost, which is one of their Pennsy properties, will open this morning. Great little upside-down ski area…since we’re on the subject of the Keystone State, Shawnee, Blue Mountain and Elk opened this week, Camelback and Round Top slated for today, with Bear Creek, Blue Knob, Hidden Valley Resort, Liberty, Seven Springs, and Ski Big Bear set for this weekend. Not sure if Ski Big Bear will remain through the week. If you’re keeping track of Pennsy resorts this leaves Nemacolin, scheduled for Christmas Eve, and back-from-the-dead Laurel Mountain, which we don’t have a date for yet. I can say that Laurel has tested their snowmaking equipment, the first on that hill for about a decade…and if you still don’t know what the “Pennsylvania 6-5000” reference means, please click here and enjoy the soothing sounds of yesteryear via Youtube.

Photo above: Jackson Hole getting dumped on, opened to the top earlier this week. Photo courtesy JHMR