#Colorado
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| Summit Daily |
It appears for the first time in years neither Arapahoe Basin Ski Area nor Loveland Ski Area will be the first Colorado ski area to open the state's ski season.
On Wednesday — in the wake of a massive early season storm that dumped about 12 inches of snow at Wolf Creek Ski Area's summit elevation of 11,904 feet — Wolf Creek announced it plans to start spinning its chairs on Saturday.
The Durango Herald first reported the news. In the Durango Herald article, Elesha Goad, ticket office supervisor for Wolf Creek Ski Area, said the mountain is also reporting 8 inches of snow at the ski area's mid-mountain. As a result, Wolf Creek will open Saturday and Sunday, though the ski area is still deciding what portions of the mountain will be open and what the price of admission will be.
Over at Arapahoe Basin Ski Area, A-Basin's director of marketing and communications, Leigh Hierholzer, said via email on Wednesday morning that the ski area has yet to formalize an officially announced opening date. That said, the ski area has referred to a "budgeted opening date" of Oct. 19 since A-Basin closed down its lifts last June.
"We have no update as of now on the opening date," Hierholzer wrote.
A-Basin's chief operating officer Alan Henceroth wrote on his blog Wednesday that the ski area's snowmakers had two consecutive nights of "big" snowmaking.
"We hope to keep the snowmaking system running all day," Henceroth continued. "If we are really lucky, maybe we can run it all day (Thursday) also. So while we had previously run the system a few times, that was practice and training and maybe a little bit of snowmaking. This session is the real deal."
Over at Loveland, snowmaking operations have continued in full at the ski area at the Continental Divide since it commenced on Monday.
Last season, A-Basin opened on Oct. 13 while Loveland opened on Oct. 20. Breckenridge Ski Resort and Keystone Resort plan to open this year on Nov. 9 while Copper Mountain Resort is targeting an opening date of Nov. 16.
