Advertisement

eMagazine

Market Place

Search

Ski New England! Lots of Lifts are Running! Print E-mail
Written by Peter Kray / SkiPressWorld.com   
Friday, 21 November 2008 11:19

Ludlow, Vermont (Ski Press)-Mother Nature may have a bit of an East Coast bias this season. She’s given many New England ski areas enough early snow and cold nighttime temps for snowmaking to get their slopes off to some stellar early openings. Here’s the latest list of who has the goods this weekend:

In Vermont, Okemo Mountain Resort opened for the start of the 2008/2009 skiing and snowboarding season at 9 a.m. today.  Okemo expects to offer top-to-bottom skiing and riding on six trails on opening day. Count Down, Upper World Cup, Lower World Cup, Link, Fairway and Open Slope will be serviced by three lifts: F-10 Carpet, Sachem Quad and Northstar Express, a high-speed quad.   
 
Killington re-opened for the 2008/09 ski and snowboard season Wednesday at 9 a.m. with 10 trails served by two lifts off KillingtonPeak. By Saturday, the number of trails open should double, adding:  Lower Mt. Road, Sapphire, Route 103, Upper Arrow, Double Dipper, Lower Arrow.  More trails are planned for Sunday.

In Maine, thanks to the help of 250 snowguns, Sunday River opened today with nine trails including top-to-bottom skiing and riding on Cascades, Sunday Punch and Right Stuff. For the weekend, another 11 trails are expected to come online to provide skiing and riding across three or Sunday River’s eight connected peaks.

New Hampshire’s Pat’s Peak opens for the 08/09 season on Saturday, November 22, with three trails including Whisper, Bluster and Duster. The Duster run will be top to bottom feeding into the lower part of Squall Line. There will be a mini-terrain park set up on the Bluster trail. Pats Peak is opening two weeks earlier than scheduled thanks to the colder temperatures and the dedication of their snowmakers.
 
Loon Mountain’s snowmaking team is capitalizing on this week's cold snap of below-normal temperatures to get maximum snow on the hill for opening weekend. Loon plans to open Saturday with at least six trails, totaling over 2 1/2 miles of intermediate and advanced level skiing and riding, including several top-to-bottom routes. In addition, Loon will have one route from the top of the Gondola to the East Basin Double Chair. Novice terrain is expected to open next week.

New York’s Jiminy Peak has a 18-36 inch base and Upper and Lower Fox have been added to the trail mix, along with Raccoons Den for 12 trails and 66 acres of open terrain.
Operating hours are 9 am – 4 pm Saturday and Sunday this weekend on 12 trails and 3 lifts for 3.5 miles of runs.

Peek’n Peak Resort and Spa will open for its 45th winter season on Wednesday, November 26, at 9:30 a.m. with seven-ten slopes, three lifts and a 6-12” packed powder surface base. Snowmaking began on Monday, November 17th at 6pm.  The temperatures have been favorable and the resort will continue to make snow.

Greek Peak Mountain Resort will be open for skiing and snowboarding this Saturday at 10:00 a.m. “With the arrival of snow and colder temperatures this week, we will be offering a quality top-to-bottom skiing and riding product this weekend,” said Kevin Morrin, Director of Sales and Marketing for Greek Peak Mountain Resort. “We started making snow Tuesday night, November 18, with the hopes of opening the resort on Saturday. We plan to shut the down the following week so that we can focus 100% of our efforts on snowmaking and getting the most amount of terrain open to our customers as early as possible.”

And in Canada, snowsports enthusiasts lined up at the base of the Mont Tremblant Gondola today in a bid to be the first to ride the 10 trails opened.
 
Skiers are able to ride the Gondola to reach the summit and then have access to the upper part of the mountain: la Crête, Nansen, Beauvallon, Mi-Chemin and Alpine serviced by TGV chairlift on the South Side, as well as P'tit Bonheur, Beauchemin haut, Rope Tow, Traverse and Lowell Thomas serviced by Lowell Thomas chairlift on the North Side.