SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. — Mountain snow could soon be falling with Denver7's meteorologists forecasting several inches of snow in the highest elevations across the Front Range and down into the San Juans.
Arapahoe Basin is typically one of the first resorts to open with crews hard at work to get the mountain ready for the start of ski season. Shayna Silverman, Arapahoe Basin communications manager, explained they have a small but mighty team that 'gets a lot done in a small window.'
"Our team does a ton of work to get the ski area ready for the winter season," explained Silverman. "A lot of that is things that you see hyped up on social media all the time. It's testing our snow guns. It's making sure the water pipes are working properly, our electricity is working properly, but it's also our lift ops team making sure our chairlifts are running. It's our grooming team getting our snowcats ready, our for team flipping restaurants."
With this snowstorm heading to the high country, Silverman said the resort is ready with a team of five snowmakers and 20 snowguns. Not only is the precipitation needed, but the cold and dry air help the resort with turning the snowguns on.
"We look at long-term forecasts to make sure that we're able to turn our snowguns on and use the water sustainably. So, we're not going to turn these guns on if it's going to be two degrees tomorrow night, but then 45 degrees the next night. We're going to make sure that we're turning these on and the snow that we're putting on the ground is going to last for a period of time," Silverman said.
Arapahoe Basin has not announced an opening day, but Silverman said the resort plans to open as soon as possible but it is left up to Mother Nature. This year also marks a major milestone for the resort as it celebrates 80 years of welcoming generations of skiers to the mountain.
"The snow is bringing the stoke. It's making us excited for this 80th season and it's making it feel closer than ever before," Silverman said.
Besides ski resorts getting ready for the snowy conditions, towing companies like Mountain Recovery are gearing up to help drivers. Charlie Stubblefield is the founder and partner of Mountain Recovery which serves the Interstate 70 corridor between Denver and Avon.
"Normally we don't see the snowstorm until the last week of October last year. We hardly saw it at all. After last year, that was a hard year for business. It was a hard year, especially for our local economy, ski resorts, restaurants, hotels, everyone is hurting from last year, so to see this come early is a breath of fresh air," Stubblefield said.
The company has been around for seven years and has 20 trucks in the mountain. Stubblefield emphasized drivers should keep their distance when driving in the snowy conditions, have the right gear in the car from good tires to extra blankets and food along with checking CoTrip.
"Snow in the forecast, that's huge. We're gearing up all new tires on all these trucks. We spent over $100,000 a year on tires just to keep up on traction and all that kind of thing. We're ready with tire chains. We're ready with windshield washer fluid, spare windshield wipers, the whole complement of everything that you could possibly need, and the snow storm," Stubblefield said.
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