Steamboat's Olympic silver medalist, Todd Lodwick, enjoys the first ski of the season
The Steamboat Springs Nordic Council announced this morning that Bruce’s Trail on Rabbit Ears Pass is open! It’s a sure sign that winter is here and the ski season, at least the Nordic ski season, has begun! And from the photo taken above by Larry Pierce it appears that Todd Lodwick is enjoying the snow. We are less than a month away from the start of the Steamboat Ski Area’s 2010-2011 ski season - Opening Day is in 27 days!
Maizy poses on Heavenly Daze
According to my neighbor, Dr. Gannet Hallar of Storm Peak Laboratory, we broke a record last Friday for most precipitation in a 24-hour period. Of course most of this came down as rain, but the temperature dropped and Friday night the rain turned to snow.
So I woke up early last Saturday to take my 4 month old puppy, Maizy, out to experience snow for the first time. She was a bit apprehensive at first, but who could blame her? It was dark, cold, and she had just woken up… However she soon took to the white stuff, as dogs do in mountain towns, and we had a great weekend exploring the trails in white!
The snow kept coming throughout the weekend, and into Monday accumulating 14.5 at Thunderhead, the resort’s mid-mountain location at 9,080 feet, on Monday. Steamboat’s snow-making crews are putting the finishing touches on several new improvements to its state-of-the-art system and anticipate firing up around the first weekend in November, depending upon conditions.
Maizy gives me her profile with the Steamboat Ski Area in the background
It certainly has been cold enough to fire up those snow guns at night, however so far Mother Nature has taken care of our base, which is now up to 19 inches! A great start considering it’s still October!
Meanwhile, this first snow is making Steamboat Springs look a little more like winter which means I can finally prepare for the upcoming season: put away the bike jerseys and pull out my sweaters. Winter is here, I can’t wait to ski!
