Couple more on the books in Colorado; Summit County’s Copper Mountain opened for the season this afternoon, while Front Range fave Eldora spun the lifts this weekend and they’re good to go…New Mexico kicked off the season at Sipapu on Friday, they’re spinning a surface lift for the Bambi trail, you can see it in the photo above. Sipapu is a native name for something, ought to mean “super chill” as the place really is just that, about as laid back and non-resorty as a resort can get. At 8200′ base elevation, they’re often the first to open in New Mexico and this year was no exception…elsewhere in the Land of Enchantment, Taos is scheduled to open on Thanksgiving, but I’m not 100% sure that’s gonna happen. Weather ain’t the only issue — Ski Santa Fe GM Ben Abruzzo sez they have about 230 employees signed on for the season, which they normally kick off with about 350…in Maine, Sugarloaf spinning a pair of chairs today with top-to-bottom skiing on a couple routes. Tonight they’ll be turning the guns back on the Candy Side trail…over in Vermont, Stratton now delaying their opening a couple of days, hoping for Saturday. Not sure what the issue is, as they’ve had their snowmaking system absolutely pounding the mountain…Shout out to the New York Times, nice article today about the Indy Pass. Here’s a link but you may get stopped by a pay wall. Judging by the online comments, the article is completely lost on some of the readers…and World Cup womens action this weekend in Levi, Finland, Petra Vlhova scored a pair of impressive wins over Mikaela Shiffrin and Lena Duerr. I’m not editorializing, that trio finished 1-2-3 both Saturday and Sunday. The results currently have Vlhova & Shiffrin tied for the overall…in other WC news, Beaver Creek Colorado just got the green light — aka “positive snow control” for the Birds of Prey competition in early December. The review was delayed for a couple days, unsure exactly why but rumor is they needed time to review changing weather patterns. I skied the Birds of Prey course a couple of years ago and had two key takeaways: 1. I need to be more humble, and 2. World Cup downhillers are NUTS.