11 January 2017 — With apologies to John Candy…hope you aren’t reading this from Squaw Valley right now, means your vacation has turned out to be seriously disappointing. Three feet of snow, KT-22 is buried, but the lifts aren’t running! Let’s hope they get back in action today…ups-and-downs in the lower midwest this week; bigger operations like Paoli Peaks IN and Alpine Valley OH all shut down yesterday for the rain event that blew through…in Colorado, neither Crested Butte nor Monarch Mountain opened yesterday, and Arapahoe Basin shut down at 1:00 PM, all due to too much, uh, snow. In fact Crested Butte has been shuttered since Monday. I-70 closed due to avalanche so you’d think Loveland was closed but the photo above was snapped from the live cam at 2:30 yesterday, so I guess anyone who got there prior to the road closure had a darn fine ski area all to themselves…Vail pass closed on I-70 yesterday due to avalanche, but they’re getting that reopened…wow…Berthoud Pass closed, that’s the way most people drive in to Winter Park. That’s a crazy road even when it’s clear…so what does all this mean? Have to wait and see what today brings. If you take a second look at the photo from Loveland you can see a LOT of snow on the roof of that building…so let me give you at least some good news…New York’s Gore Mountain sez they’ll open both the Burnt Ridge and the High Peaks chairs this weekend; that makes a huge difference if you know that mountain at all…in Vermont, I neglected to report that Magic Mountain has opened this season, that’s real good news. The venerable Londonderry property has had quite a few up-and-down seasons, as in, like 30 of them…9″ new snow at Caberfae in Michigan yesterday…The World Cup ladies tour was in Flachau, Austria last night for the richest race of the year, with a €175,000 total purse for what they call the “Snow Space Princess” slalom race. Frida Hansdotter came off her surging weekend with a blistering first run to take the crown. Norway’s Nina Loeseth claimed second while third was a tie between Mikaela Shiffrin and Swiss technician Wendy Holdener. Lara Gut DNFd the first run, padding Shiffrin’s lead in the overall by another 50ish points. The gals move on to nearby Altenmarkt-Zauchensee, Austria, for downhill and alpine combined races this coming weekend. Men meanwhile are in Wengen, gearing up for the Lauberhorn. Italy’s Peter Fill was fastest in yesterday’s training run….LATE MORNING UPDATE: A-Basin fans awoke to find US 6 still closed down by Keystone; they’re hoping to open later but timing unknown — it is still snowing, and snowing heavily…also want to correct my mistake above, I-70 avalanche out by Copper Mountain, not Loveland, although both were open yesterday and today. Copper has a lot of chutes and steeper terrain closed, awaiting patrol to clear the avy danger….a lot of Tahoe stuff remains closed today…Monarch and Crested Butte will indeed open this morning…Ohio’s Boston Mills/Brandywine and Alpine Valley have reopened.
Photo courtesy Loveland Basin