North America Snow Wrap – Waiting Waiting…
Aspen Highlands on opening day 2011. Image:: Aspen Snowmass
Weekly Snow Wrap
Weekend snowfalls, top 5 in North America: 1 – Alyeska, Alaska with 101cm, 2 – Indianhead, Michigan with 30cm, 3 – Sunrise Park, Arizona with 30cm, 4 – Stoneham Mountain, Quebec with 27cm and 5 – Big Boulder, Pennsylvania with 25cm
On the forecast:
Except for Alaska, there’s not much snow at all heading for North America in the next five days. I’m as sick of writing that sentence as everyone is of reading it… hurry up La Nina.
Highlights this week:
Alaska didn’t do too badly at all this week. Other than that, sunshine-filled days is about all I have to wax lyrical about.
If we could pick anywhere this week, we’d be: It’s way too early in the season for Alaska, so perhaps somewhere in Colorado, where small snowfall has been followed up by more small snowfalls. Not big, but consistent.
British Columbia
Status: All the major resorts, with the exception of Mt Baldy and Red Mountain, are now open and running about 85% of their runs.
Recent snow: Light snowfalls – Fernie topped the list with 12.5cm – for Interior BC but nothing at Whistler for the past week.
Coming snow: Yes, it is coming, but not in any spectacular fashion, perhaps 10cm for the interior over the next week and about double that along the coast ie Whistler.
Conditions generally: With some recent snowfalls the cover has increased and it’s generally of the packed powder variety.
Highlights: Christmas festivities are in full swing everywhere.
Beaver Creek 11 December, little bit of fresh! Image:: Cody Downard/Beaver Creek
Alberta
Status: All Alberta’s main resorts are operational and running at well above half capacity – up to about 85% mostly.
Recent snow: There’s been about 20cm in the past few days across the Banff area.
Coming snow: A snowy week ahead! Not much strength to the snow clouds – only perhaps 25cm all up, but nice crisp temperatures to keep everything cold and dry!
Conditions generally: Quite decent really, with regular – if only small – snow top-ups and cold air the coverage is not too bad!
Highlights: Banff has to be one of the prettiest places to spend Christmas!
Canada East Coast
Status: A few of the east coast resorts are no open, including Mont Sainte-Anne, Stoneham and Tremblant, but none of them are running at anything like fully open.
Recent snow: Not much snow about last week, except at Stoneham where there was a decent 30cm or so.
Coming snow: Again, not much forecast for the next five days.
Conditions generally: Early, early, early season.
Highlights: Early season deals all round!
California
Status: Still only about half the Californian resorts are open – but that’s mostly becasue the smaller resorts have mid December scheduled openings. The resorts that are open though are not running all that many trails.
Recent snow: The December drought has broken in some places – Bear Mountain, Snow valley and the small resorts closer to LA recorded about 15cm at the beginning of the week.
Coming snow: Spatterings of snowflakes here and there – a little more for Tahoe – but the season-making storm is yet to appear.
Conditions generally: It’s still early season in California
Highlights: Fireworks extravaganza in Mammoth, ice spectacular in Heavenly… Christmas parties everywhere.
Colorado
Status: Most of the Colorado resorts are open. Aspen’s running 45% of its terrain, Telluride 22%, Crested Butte 50%, the others are all somewhere around that.
Recent snow: The further south you go, the more it snowed over the weekend with Wolf Creek and Silverton getting the best of it – about 15cm – and the upper state resorts seeing only a couple of centimetres at best.
Coming snow: Snow to start the week, then clear skies before the snow comes in again at the beginning of next week. Again, not much in it – just 10cm or so.
Conditions generally: Cold air and last week’s snow mean the bases are doing ok, but it’s still very much December skiing at the moment.
Highlights: The new Colorado Triple Play ticket gives you two days at Aspen, Steamboat and Winterpark, for under $50 per day. Nice.
Snow building up at Deer Valley Tuesday 13 December. Image:: Deer Valley
Utah
Status: Pretty much everywhere in Utah is open now, but still only about half of each resort’s terrain is available.
Recent snow: Almost 20cm of snow fell at Brian Head over the weekend but the rest of the state was pretty dry. 9cm or so at Canyons, about 6cm at Park City.
Coming snow: The beginning of next week is looking promising, only a few centimetres expected on Monday at the moment but could turn into something bigger.
Conditions generally: Last week’s snowfalls have packed down to a dry, firm base.
Highlights: Santa will be dropping into Park City on Saturday night!
North West – Wyoming, Idaho, Montana
Status: Jackson Hole as 50% of its terrain open, Sun Valley about 30%, the other resorts more like 20%. But most of the resorts are open to some extent.
Recent snow: Small snowflurries of well under 10cm spotted the region over the beginning of the week but nothing decent.
Coming snow: Despite overcast skies, there’s no snow on the forecast for the next five days or so.
Conditions generally: No resorts are reporting a base over 1m, and with little recent snow the slopes will be packed powder at best.
Highlights: Big Christmas celebrations planned at Big Sky, JH is claiming to have the best conditions in the USA…
