Your faithful scribe is on the slopes as you read this, so we’re trying to cover two days in one.  We’ll stuff as much news in as we can…first up, photo above courtesy Shawnee Mountain in the Pennsy Poconos; they’re reopening this Saturday 9th (they had a brief bunny hill fling a couple weeks back) and hopefully open for the season…temps plummeted across the midwest yesterday afternoon, Caberfae Peaks Michigan sez they’ll reopen this Saturday & Sunday, and crank up full time operations on Friday, December 15th…up in Maine, Sugarloaf quietly adding terrain, now over 100 acres open, they’re offering up a demo day on Saturday so if you’re pondering new skis, good time to go…New York throwback Plattekill turned the guns back on this morning (Thursday) and they’ve set December 16 as opening day…their neighbor slightly north and east or so is Catskill biggie Hunter Mountain; “Huntah” has remained open somehow during the warm up and now the guns are back on, resurfacing the existing while some are targeting new terrain…northwest of Columbus  Ohio,  Mad River Mountain has finally got the temps to fire up their snowmaking arsenal, but no word yet on opening…