Ready for ski season: Resort prepares for opening day
<p class="p1"><strong>Nathan Hafferman</strong> carries gates to the beginner hill at Whitefish Mountain Resort on Wednesday. The resort opens on Saturday. (Aaric Bryan photos/Daily Inter Lake)</p>
Whitefish Mountain Resort is gearing up for opening day on Saturday, kicking off the resort’s 67th season.
The ski area received more than 3 feet of snow in November and nearly 12 inches fell on Big Mountain last weekend. The summit had at least 47 inches on Thursday and there was a foot of snow in the village area.
More snow is expected today and into the weekend.
Chair 3, Chair 6, Chair 9 and the Big Easy Carpet open at 9 a.m. Saturday to access some beginner terrain.
Chair 1 will open at 9:30 a.m. and will be available for downloading if needed.
“We don’t have enough snow on the front side to open,” resort spokeswoman Riley Polumbus said Thursday. “We’ll have Russ’s Street open top to bottom to get back to the base, but that’ll probably be it.”
Polumbus said the best places for snow will be the mountain’s back side.
Chair 7, the Bigfoot T-Bar and the new Flower Point lift open at 10 a.m. Saturday.
The Flower Point triple chair will open an additional 200 acres of terrain on the north side of the mountain that previously was accessible only by hiking.
“It’s not a bad opening day,” Polumbus said. “We’ll keep our fingers crosses for more snow and keep opening as more things become skiable.”
Resort crews have been working to coat the front face of the mountain with manmade snow to line areas that see the most traffic during the day. In November, crews spent nine consecutive days making snow when an early cold snap hit, and fired the machines up again last weekend to blast the base area and upper Toni Matt slope.
All resort amenities are expected to open Saturday, including the newly renovated Base Lodge, which double the square footage of the Base Lodge Cafe. A new coffee bar was added to the Base Lodge Patio as well as additional overflow indoor seating.
The resort expanded its grooming fleet with the purchase of two snowcats that will improve grooming in hard-to-reach places. There is a new Fir parking lot that will accommodate up to 300 cars near the Base Lodge.
Single-day lift tickets this year are $71 for adults, $60 for seniors, $63 for teens, $37 for juniors and children 6 and under ski free. A ticket to ski on beginner terrain only is $21.
Blacktail Mountain Ski Area in Lakeside has yet to announce a 2014 opening date.