Photo above shows Lee Canyon Resort up on the side of Mt. Charleston near Las Vegas; they’ve fired up their arsenal of fan guns and had a few dustings from the sky. They’re targeting next Friday, December 8th, but haven’t made any kind of formal announcement yet…Colorado and Utah early season picture is still best described as odd. Utah’s Snowbird has been working feverishly with marginal temps; they’ll reopen at the Creekside base tomorrow Dec 2…not so good down in Colorado; Vail has the Born Free route and that’s it. Steamboat hanging on with some meager terrain somehow…meanwhile Loveland enjoying their snow storms and base elevation, they’ll be adding the Ptarmigan lift tomorrow. Knowing what I know, Loveland would be my destination this weekend if I were headed west on I-70…some things starting to shake loose in Vermont; Killington has added the Superstar and Rams Head chairs, they’ll be opening the Rams Head base and colder weather is moving in. Looking good for the coming weeks and Christmas holiday…meanwhile down the road apiece, Southern VT biggie Stratton added seven runs overnight…up north Jay Peak fans are claiming two feet of snow fell, but whatever the heck fell, they aren’t skiing on it. In fact they had a bit of a freeze yesterday, had to shut a bunch of terrain down. An inch of muck fell overnight, temps are up and stuff is softer, so their trail count is back up a bit…Now we’ve got a whole bunch of resorts claiming “most open terrain in the east.*” I guess the way they all justify it is in the fine print, “*northwest of the Pemigewasset River” or some such thing. Who really has the most? Hard to say. Maybe Mont Tremblant…speaking of French, word just in that the men’s FIS Ski World Cup races in Val d’Isère (FRA) are confirmed following the official snow control. As scheduled, the races will take place on 9th – 10th December 2017.