A plethora of ski areas opened this past weekend from coast to coast, our lead New England correspondent Sam Shirley was on hand at Bretton Woods NH Saturday; Sam shares the photos above and below to give the rest of us a run in the sunshine…



…Sam reports that “It was a perfect bluebird day with clear skies and almost no wind. The only open trail was Rangeview which had excellent manmade cover down the middle and decent natural snow on the edges. Many guns were running across the mountain all day, both on open and closed terrain.”…two more Colorado resorts entered the fray this past weekend; Summit County’s popular Copper Mountain opened Thursday and southern area Wolf Creek cranked it up on Saturday….and we saw the guns come on at West Mountain NY, this is a smallish/mid sized ski area just north of Saratoga, earliest they’ve ever fired up the compressors…snowguns on at Granite Peak Wisconsin; they’ll open this coming Friday…Caberfae Peaks Michigan made piles top to bottom this weekend, but we really don’t expect any lift served skiing in Cadillac until Thanksgiving. BTW we’ve added a live webcam from Caberfae over there on the right hand column; you do have to click the little arrow thing but that’s it, shows it right there…Pennsylvanians or anyone who lives close to the Keystone State ought to be aware of a program Ski PA is offering for 4th and 5th graders; show some proof of school grade, fill in a form and for $35 your child gets three free lift tix, can’t beat that. Here’s the link to the Ski PA program…back to Colorado, looking at the smaller, “GEMS” ski areas, we have word on the following opening dates: Next up is Eldora, which is scheduled for this Friday, followed by newly reopened Echo Mountain on the 21st, Sunlight and Ski Cooper will be Dec 8th & 9th respectively, and then Granby Ranch, Hesperus, and Powderhorn on Dec 15. That leaves Monarch Mountain, which we expect to hear from in a week or two…