Grand Targhee Wyoming kicks off their 50th season today, kudos and congratulations to one of the best underrated resorts around. They’re spinning Dreamcatcher, Papoose, and Shoshone — not too shabby. Photo above shows mountain ops ironing out the final details at the Dreamcatcher lift yesterday afternoon…Maine’s top dog Sugarloaf also opening today, based on what I’ve seen up there they’ll have quite a bit of terrain in play…in the Lake Tahoe area, Alpine Meadows and Squaw Valley both underway today. Alpine Meadows set to run the Kangaroo lift, while Squaw will spin the First Venture chair and the SnoVentures carpet. They’ll also be sending the tram around, but that’s sightseeing only at this point…natural stuff covering enough of the Colorado countryside that Arapahoe Basin officially opened for uphill traffic yesterday afternoon. A-Basin has been open for a few weeks; if you aren’t familiar with it, this is before and after the lifts are running time for the earn-your-turns crowd to hump up the hill. Hey, it’s bigger than you might realize — Basin had over 100 competitors doing randonee laps yesterday, winner did five in an hour. Bonus is, they’re all in fabulous shape…in New York, all three state-owned resorts are opening this weekend, Belleayre, Gore and Whiteface…real surprise in all of this is that Pennsylvania’s Big Boulder opens at 1:00 this afternoon, they’ll be running two lifts serving up a trail and a terrain park. The Peak Resorts property will open for full days tomorrow and Sunday, nothing firm after that…day two of belated birthday greetings, yesterday I was so busy catching up on missing Resi Stiegler’s birthday, I missed the fact that it was Sofia Goggia’s 26th yesterday. Sofia is our reigning Olympic DH gold medalist, and unfortunately the Italian star is recovering from an injury and will likely miss most of this season…New Hampshire’s Cannon Mountain has their fan guns on Gary’s and Rocket and looking at next Friday to drop the ropes…