First a reminder; we will be delaying the opening of all lifts until 9 am tomorrow – New Year’s Day – and Monday.
Second; we will not be operating Highlands lift and Madonna II tomorrow due to the lack of snow. We intend to try and scrape up enough to try and get them open on Monday after it freezes Sunday night. Those lifts will then be closed Tuesday through Thursday with a planned reopening of next Friday or Saturday, pending snowmaking starting Thursday.
I want to thank our grooming staff for doing a great job this morning. We can not control the weather, but we can the most of what it gives us. To produce the best snow surface possible for our skiers and riders the groomers were out in force this morning. Laying down some fantastic corduroy on all 3 mountains before the lifts started turning. I skied all 3 mountains and really enjoyed the beautiful soft conditions! I would have to say that Smugglers’ Alley was my trail pick of the day. Today’s warmer weather brought out some Hawaiian skirts, tutus, and more. The best costume of the day goes to the one and only Adam Howard. He is the first photo in this blog post. My daughter Hayleigh and I spotted him skiing into the Sterling corral as we were about to get on the lift. I told Hayleigh that we would have to wait on top for him because I just had to get a picture of him. My original plan was to get a photo of him standing somewhere at the summit of Sterling. When Adam unloaded the Sterling Lift he took a left turn and headed for Smugglers’ Alley. Hayleigh and I quickly followed him and luckily he stopped on the side of the trail to talk to someone. This allowed us to get in front of him and get the action shot, which turned out to be so much better. The cape flying behind him was the icing on the cake! Thank you Adam for raising the bar!
Tomorrow’s forecast is calling for a chance of rain at lower elevations with temperatures starting off around 39 degrees at 9 am and falling through the day. At higher elevations, temperatures will start at 34 degrees at 9 am falling to around 26 degrees at 4 pm with mixed precipitation becoming sleet and then snow with less than an inch of accumulation possible. We plan to groom 14 trails for a grand total of 66 acres of freshly groomed terrain for Sunday. Please check the trail-by-trail snow report in the morning for the latest lift and trail information.
I would like to give a huge shout-out to ALL Smuggs Employees for going the extra mile this holiday week! They have worked extra hours and many working their day or even days off to give our guests a wonderful experience while they are here at Smuggs. You always Step It Up and it is really appreciated! THANK YOU!
That’s all for now, I’ll see you next year.
