12 January 2017 — The weather-related openings and closings continue from coast to coast; Arapahoe Basin did manage to reopen yesterday; COO Alan Henceroth said on his blog “About 100 cars showed up and people enjoyed some deep, deep, deep snow. It has been an exciting and very challenging 36 hours around here. The reward was snow about as good as it gets.” Today looking good not only at the Basin, but also over the hill at Loveland with over a foot of fresh…add West Mountain NY to the closed roster, at least for today, as New England is getting hammered by the R-word…Squaw Valley and Alpine California both silent for days amidst a regional power outtage; they’re trying to get something reopened today, looks positive…Boreal reopened this morning…roads into Powder Mountain UT closed; they’re hoping to reopen this afternoon…we just kind of putter around the country here, giving you the bad news; good news is a LOT of areas east and west have been getting a LOT of snow…Paoli Peaks IN closed today, they’ll start spinning again at 10 AM tomorrow. Makes a lot of sense for these banana belt areas to close in heavy rains…speaking of banana belt, Woody Bousquet, our favorite Mid-Atlantic correspondent has been kind enough to send us another update: With 100% snowmaking, 6 days of overnight lows in the low teens to mid-twenties, and hardworking mountain ops crews, the three Snow Time, Inc., resorts – Liberty, Whitetail and Roundtop – were 100% open as the ropes dropped yesterday, January 11. Here’s a photo [above] I snapped Monday, January 9 of snowmaking at Whitetail PA: building up the base and opening up the last runs in advance of the anticipated midweek warm spell…Meanwhile Timberline WV, with some of the best, if not the best, terrain in the Mid-Atlantic, reports most of their novice terrain in play but only two top-to-bottom runs open. The Silver Queen triple chairlift, one of T-line’s two summit lifts, is loading as a double this season. No word yet from Timberline’s new Chief Operations Officer/Chief Financial Officer about plans for improving the skiing experience…thanks Woody!…only thing I’ll add is, I guess Timberline is proof positive that it’s tough to earn a living as a ski resort in the Mid-Atlantic — even with the best terrain and darn helpful base elevation (3200’+), it’s still tough sledding in this business…another thing I’ll add, Woody has a great eye for ski photos!

Above, January 9 snowmaking at Whitetail PA. Woody Bousquet photo.