With 15 inches of fresh snow in the last five days, and all kinds of encouraging things in the forecast, it’s no wonder so many people are asking “when will you be open???”.

At this moment, it is simply too soon to tell.

The 15 inches of snow that’s fallen has compacted into a base of about 7-9 inches in the base area and there’s about 16-18″ on the upper mountain. (Some of that was left over from earlier storms.)

All eyes are on this:

Tonight: Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 5 to 9 inches possible.

And dedicated weather watchers have probably also seen this:

A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW IS IN EFFECT UNTIL
5 PM MST TUESDAY. SNOW AMOUNTS OF 6 TO 12 INCHES IN THE MOUNTAIN
VALLEYS WITH A FOOT OR MORE IN THE MOUNTAINS CAN BE EXPECTED. IN
ADDITION...SUSTAINED WINDS OF 10 TO 20 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 35 MPH
WILL CREATE BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW.

Naturally, that’s got a lot of people excited, including everyone here at Brundage Mountain. IF we got all the snow in the forecast we MIGHT be able to open this weekend. But over the years, we’ve learned to never count our inches until they’ve fallen. Today offers a good example of why.

Today: Chance of precipitation is 90%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 3 to 7 inches possible.

We woke up to 4″ of fresh snow early this morning, and have only seen another 1″ since then…a far cry from 3-7″. That puts a lot of pressure on in the next 24-26 hours.

Taking a look around the mountain, you’ll see why. The main ‘base area’ looks like it’s got a pretty good coating…there’s about 8-9 inches there.

Snow is a bit thinner down around the base of the Bear Chair and Centennial lifts.

But, we love to see our crews at work putting the final touches on our pre-season tasks. We are truly ready to open as soon as we get enough snow to get the groomers on the slopes. After that, it takes about 48 hours to track and groom the slopes into skiable condition.

Here’s a look at where things get tricky. 13 degrees at the bottom of Centennial. 7 degrees today at the summit. Winds gusting up to 35 miles per hour pushing the light snow around the upper mountain in unpredictable ways. Temperatures are expected to PLUNGE as low as -20 degrees (no kidding) in the next 48 hours. That means any new snow is likely to be very, very dry.

Mid-season, that’s a good thing (POWDER DAY!), but this time of year we want our snow to pack into a nice, consolidated base. The snow we have so far is pretty fluffy already.

The ski pole on the left shows there’s about 7-8 inches of ‘snow on the ground’. The pole on the right shows that amount of snow can pack out to just a couple inches.

Putting a heavy grooming machine on that snow can be a little like sticking an electric mixer in a bowl of dry flour. (POOF! IT’S GONE!)

So here’s the list of things we DON’T know right now.

Will we be open this weekend? We don’t know yet.

Will we actually get 3-7 inches today and up to a foot tonight? We don’t know yet.

Will that amount of snow be enough to properly groom the slopes? We don’t know yet.

When will you know? Well, that’s anyone’s guess.

What I can tell you FOR SURE is that we will be out on the slopes tomorrow assessing what happens overnight tonight and whether it is the magic mix of conditions to allow us to open…if it is, we will DEFINITELY let you all know as soon as humanly possible.

So keep your fingers crossed and check back soon. Because the two other things we do know for sure is that we’d like to open the slopes as soon as possible…and that it’s awfully pretty up here with this fresh coating of soft white snow.

– April