Wait, just a little bit longer.

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but with the warm temperatures and lack of natural snowfall, we have had to move our scheduled opening back to Wednesday, November 21. To show what we're dealing with, I took a photo of snowmaking in progress yesterday, and you can see that although the fan guns were churning away, we weren't seeing a lot of production. Rest assured, we will be making snow every chance that we get and with just a bit cooler weather we should be able to make some significant progress towards getting some white stuff down on the ground. So, do your best snow dances and we'll let you know as things change.

Comments

[Dave]

If I did the math right, the historical average opening day is Nov 18th. 11/21 is still in the zone. Presumably Thanksgiving opening is a big goal... having it fall so early this year doesn't help

Eric replies:
Dave, your math looks right to me and yep, we'd love to be open for Thanksgiving, nothing helps the appetite for Turkey more than a few turns!

[John D.]

I know a lot of people have been concerned and definitely not trying to be repetitive but me and the girlfriend planned a trip to be there November 30th and December 1st......would you think rescheduling would be ideal or would some runs be open to have fun.....this would be our first time to park city!!

Eric replies,
John, I don't have much to add at this point, it's really wait and see what Mother Nature brings us in the next few days to really know what conditions will be like in the next few weeks. In the meantime, here's a great site to check Utah resort weather forecasts on, http://www.utahskiweather.com/index.php (maybe this can keep me out of the forecasting loop!)

[Michelle B.]

I am traveling the day after Thanksgiving for a week with two children. My son is signed up for ski school that week. Will there be snow for them to ski on? I guess I will make the hours drive to Alta if there are little to no runs open at PC. Is that your best bet or is there something closer in? Thanks.

Eric replies:
Michelle, we certainly hope that conditions allow us to open some terrain by then. At this time I believe that Solitude is planning to open for this weekend (with limited terrain) and most other resorts in the area have their opening day as "to be determined." Keep your fingers and toes crossed for some colder weather and perhaps some snow!

[Patrick]

My family has a place up in Park City so I normally make a few trips each winter. Last winter we came up for Thanksgiving and there was only 1 or 2 runs open at Park City but it was much better at Alta and Snowbird. This year we decided to wait until Dec 15th to make the first trip and I'm sure glad we did! You just never know with the weather as I've seen completely brown Thanksgivings in Park City (Nov 2001) to mid-winter style conditions and everything in between.

Once this pattern changes I'll be anticipating some major dumps coming up by late November through December. Stay positive everyone and thanks for the updates Eric!

Eric replies:
Patrick, thanks for the comment - you said exactly what I've been trying to say!

[ilan marcuschamer]

Hello, I´m very concerned about the weather conditions over there, I´m traveling from Mexico City next 7th December. In your opinion based on past opening season days, and past season conditions, How do you think the weather will be in these days?, and more important, how do you think the mountain condition will be?

Do you think I have to be worried?

Eric replies:
Ilan, in three weeks the weather here in the Wasatch Mountains can change in any number of ways, for example, a few seasons ago we received nearly 100 inches of snow over the Thanksgiving Holiday (in just 4 days). Because of this huge variability, if I thought I could accurately answer your question, I would be in the wrong profession!
Historically, during the first part of December, we are in the process of opening as much of the mountain as possible with natural snowfall, although we also supplement that with our snowmaking system - with which we can over 500 acres of terrain.
Lastly, here's a quick list of our actual opening days for the past 10 season:
11/14/97
11/12/98
11/24/99
11/11/00
11/24/01
11/16/02
11/15/03
11/24/04
11/23/05
11/17/06
I'll try to keep you posted!

[Matt]

Just looked at the weather. Looks like the temps are dropping down into the lower 30s and upper 20s in the coming week. Will you guys be making snow during those days?

Eric replies:
Matt, we're making snow whever conditions permit, check out this site for a good explanation of what sort of conditions are needed for snowmaking can be found here, http://travel.howstuffworks.com/snow-maker3.htm The big issue is that ideally temperatures need to be closer to 20 degrees for optimal snowmaking, when it's in the upper 20s snowmaking may look good (big white plumes), but it's not very efficient :(

[Dan]

If snowmaking goes good the next few nights why not choose Monday for an opening day? Give us locals a couple days before the holiday crowds.

Eric replies:
Dan, we only got 6 hours of snowmaking in again last night and unless the weather changes for the better, it may wind up being close trying to make enough snow for a Wednesday opening. Believe me, just like you, we want to open as soon as possible but we're also trying to be realistic in setting a projected opening day.

[Michelle]

I am bring my entire family the week of thanksgiving and I wanted to know if any snow is falling but just not enough to open the park? Thanks to Eric for the cottonwood idea :)

Eric replies:
Michelle, from what I hear, both Solitude and Snowbird are hoping to have limited openings for this weekend. Unless we see a major weather change, we won't be opening one of our regular parks on our opening day, but I know that we'll have some terrain park features available when we do open!

[Steve]

I can remember previous years when PC wasn't able to open for Thanksgiving and went on to have monster seasons. So I wouldn't be too quick to read any major global climate change implications into a couple weeks in November with no big snow storms. One advantage of an early season trip to Park city is you have the areas in the cottonwoods to fall back on. Most places in Colorado your trip would just be hosed.

Eric replies:
Good point, although the Cottonwood area resorts require a fair amount more base snow to open than we do - they have rather rocky trails and we don't.

[Dan]

I was just wondering if you knew if this lack of cold snowy weather was supposed to be from the theorized "global warming" or if this was just looked upon as a cycle of some sort that will work itself out over the next few years.

Eric replies:
Dan, while we have and are looking into what impact climate change may have on our business (see our site, http://www.saveoursnow.org), I don't think that we can attribute this November's weather to any global trend.

[Seth]

Do you think you guys will get some sort of terrain park features up the first day? I'm looking forward to skiing so park...

Eric replies:
Seth, I'm sure we'll have something thrown up park-wise for opening day, to find out exactly what, check our new terrain park blog at http://parkcity.typepad.com/ride_park_city/

[Jimmy]

would you guys be definitly open by the 1st week of December? we are going there that week.

Eric replies:
Jimmy, I wish there were "definites" in a weather-dependent business such as ours, but there aren't. That said, we are doing everything that we can to get open as soon as possible.