Our mountain weather has finally started resembling Summer, and it’s making a HUGE impact on our slopes.

One week ago, we shared photos from all over the mountain showing patchy snow in the base area, partial melting at mid-mountain and crazy-deep snow on the summit. (You can check out those photos here.)

Now, after a week of mostly sunny days and milder temperatures, it looks like a whole new world up here. There is still an average of 3-5 feet above the 7,000 foot mark, with snowdrifts 6-7 feet in places, but as you’ll see in these brand new photos, the base area and lower 3/4 of the mountain look COMPLETELY different.

We’ve only got a couple small patches of snow left on the exposed areas on the lower half of the mountain.

Mid-mountain at the Bear’s Den, the grass is already turning green.

This is the top of the ski run “Bear”. There are only a couple patches of snow left here, and that’s where we piled it extra high this winter to make terrain park features.

This shot is looking down that same run. There are some larger patches of snow in the shady areas where many of our mountain biking trails wind through the trees.

But on the open slopes like “Race Course”, we are all clear.

Still the most dramatic difference is seen looking uphill from the Bear’s Den.

There’s a very clear line where the snow is still holding on.

But we’ve lost several feet since just last week. The photo above shows the intersection of Sidewinder and Alpine today…

June 21, 2011

And this is a closer view of the same area one week ago.

That kind of melting is pretty consistent over our South- and West-facing slopes, with shady spots and North-facing slopes holding on to more snow.

Here’s my favorite comparison:

This is a shot looking up Engen from one week ago:

June 21, 2011

And the same view today:

Our mountain crews are too busy getting ready for our Summer Chairlift Grand Opening on Thursday to give me a ride all the way to the top. So, this is where today’s photo tour ends. The good news, you can come up on Thursday and get a FREE ride to the summit to check it out for yourselves. Here are some more details on Thursday’s festivities.

All this melting is also good news for mountain bikers. We will not be opening our downhill mountain bike trails on opening weekend, but these photos show you just how quickly the conditions on the mountain can change.

We will keep you posted on our trails openings here on this blog and also on our Facebook pages. We also have an exciting announcement for mountain bikers…we are putting the finishing touches on a four-cross course in the base area in time for opening day. So even though you can’t ride your bike down from the summit, you can be one of the very first to try out our exciting new course. I’ll post some photos of that tomorrow so you can get an idea of what’s in store.

See you all Thursday!

– April