US Resorts Race To Open For Thanksgiving
US Resorts Race To Open For Thanksgiving
Published : 21-Nov-2023 10:47
US and many larger Canadian resorts are battling nature to open intime for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday weekend, for most in the US a bigger event than Christmas.
After promising cold weather in October, the first half of November was largely warmer and drier than ski areas would have liked with little natural snowfall and temperatures too warm for snowmaking at times.
Despite that several dozen larger ski areas have opened, albeit with just a few miles of runs open so far at each, including Breckenridge, Mammoth, Stowe and Vail as well as America's largest, Park City in Utah.
In Colorado, Crested Butte's season gets underway Wednesday, November 22 with skiing and riding off Red Lady Express and Peachtree Express. The resort has seen some of the biggest accumulations of snow in America so far, with three feet of snowfall to date, although a chunk of that was back in October (the above picture was October 28th).
However some including Heavenly, Northstar, Telluride and Stratton were forced to delay planned opening dates due to the unfavourable conditions.
This week has seen temperatures drop again however and a well-timed foot of snow has fallen on the Rockies so Heavenly has announced it will open today and Northstar on Thursday, November 23.
The East Coast is expected to have a better than average year for snowfall, the west below average thanks to El Nino (the Rockies, about average!) but so far there's not been much snow in New England. Along with Killington though, Sunday River and Sugarloaf in Maine are among the resorts that have opened with top to bottom cover thanks to snowmaking.
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