Some area ski resorts begin seasons this weekend
Ski Groomer
Hey, all you ski and snowboard enthusiasts, are you ready for some exciting news? Well, ready or not, here it comes.
Whitefish Mountain Resort will open for the season Saturday. Schweitzer Mountain near Sandpoint will open for the season Friday. And Turner Mountain outside of Libby is collecting enough snow that operators project the ski area will open within the next couple of weeks.
Bruce Zwang, one of the coordinators at Turner Mountain, said the ski area received two new inches of snow in the past couple of days, bringing the total snowpack to 28 inches at the summit and 8 inches at the base.
“We really like to see about 18 inches at the bottom before we open,” Zwang said. “And we’re hoping to get that fairly soon, but you never know.”
Turner Mountain typically opens between mid-December and early January. Last year the ski area opened Jan. 1. The year before, it opened about a week before Christmas.
“It’s hit and miss at this time of year,” Zwang said. “That Christmas week is a big deal because we’re open all week, so it’s very beneficial to us financially to be open before Christmas.”
Turner Mountain recently purchased a second trail groomer and lowered ticket prices for children and young adults between the ages of 7 and 18.
As for Whitefish Mountain Resort, the best early-season skiing will be on the backside of Big Mountain. Riley Polumbus, public relations manager for the resort, said snow was 44 inches deep at the summit and just more than 20 inches deep at the bottom of Chair 7 as of Thursday afternoon. Details on which chairlifts and terrain will be open Saturday were not available.
“We’re waiting to see because we’re under a winter-weather advisory right now,” Polumbus said. “It’s been snowing up here all day, and the temperature is dropping. We hope to make an announcement (Friday) afternoon.”
Schweitzer, about 90 miles from Libby, will open today (Friday) with 62 inches of snow at the summit, 40 inches at the midpoint and 25 inches at the bottom.