Whitefish ski resort records busiest day ever
Skiers and snowboarders head to Chair 1 at Whitefish Mountain Resort on opening day. (Matt Baldwin / Daily Inter Lake)
Whitefish Mountain Resort last weekend recorded its busiest day ever on the slopes.
The resort on Friday, Dec. 30 saw 8,601 skiers and snowboarders, smashing the Dec. 28, 2014 record of 8,144.
“In general, Christmas is an important time for the ski industry and also for the ski community as a whole,” said Whitefish Mountain spokesperson Riley Polumbus, who added that the mountain is looking forward to the week ahead.
“The fact that we have that many people around indicates that this is going to pan out to being a pretty good week for us.”
Last week also saw the third-busiest day in the mountain’s history, reaching 8,071 on Wednesday, Dec. 28. The resort has only topped 8,000 skier visits three times.
An abundance of snow has come with all the skier visits. The resort has received more than 12 feet of snow so far this winter, the highest total for that time period in the last 18 seasons. In total, the mountain marked 151 inches of snow as of New Year’s Day.
According to resort statistics, the best snow year of the last 20 years was the 1996/1997 season, which had 209 inches of snow as of New Year’s Day and 406 inches at the end of season.
Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.