It’s always a pleasure to watch the snow piling up on the slopes, but this time of year the excitement can be bittersweet. With each inch that falls from the sky, we wonder how many more inches it will take to get us open for the season!

We know many of our followers are asking the same question. Because we rely 100% on natural snowfall, that is always a tough date to predict.

So I thought I would share our situation and some fresh photos to help paint a clearer picture. As always, we will open as soon as there is enough snow to properly pack and groom the slopes.

As many of you know, we got about 8 inches of fresh snow over the weekend and another 6 inches has fallen since last night. You may be wondering, then, why we are reporting a 10 inch base in the base area. (You can check out our Snow Report here).

The snow that fell Saturday was very light, dry and fluffy, and quickly compacted. The six newer inches has more water content , but also squishes down with a little bit of weight on it.

There is no ‘magic number’ of inches. We need at least 18″ of packable snow in the base and at least 24″ of packable snow on the top. If the snow is lighter, it can take up to 24″ in the base and 36″ on the top, even more if we see high winds blowing the flakes around.

As you can see, the coverage on the actual slopes is not as complete as it is on our flat, green lawn in the base area.

We’ve got more snow in the forecast for tonight, but just 3″-5″. After that, the experts are predicting some dry days. You can check out our mid-mountain forecast here. We’d need to see more snow move in early next week in order to be open for Thanksgiving. We’ve got all hands on deck getting everything ready for that possibility.

The rest, is up to Mother Nature. As for when we do get that ‘magic number’ of inches, we do plan to open for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays immediately. We would kick off 7-day-a-week operations starting December 13.

So while a Thanksgiving opening is up in the air, we are feeling grateful that we’ve got snow falling and some good base-building going on. Pray for snow and pray for cold and we’ll see you on the slopes soon!

– April