ELDORA, Colo. — Eldora Mountain is opening the resort Friday, but it has come with challenges as one of the driest starts to the ski season in Colorado.
Although it is common for ski resorts to make their own snow this early in the season, one of the challenges is having the perfect conditions to make the snow.
The temperature has to be just right, and there hasn’t been too many windows to make snow recently because of the warmer weather.
“We can only make snow when it's below freezing. And as you know, there haven't been too many below freezing stretches yet this early winter,” Marketing Director at Eldora Sam Bass explained. “But we've been seizing the moment, as it were, and just trying to grab every hour we can of snow, making weather.”
For opening day, Eldora has enough snow to cover 1,000 vertical feet of terrain from top to bottom.
“There isn't a whole lot of terrain open, but what we've got open is really well covered,” Bass said.
With the lack of snow, Eldora has not seen any changes to trips or interest from skiers. Bass described Eldora as a “backyard” local ski area that doesn't see a lot of out-of-state destination traffic.
“We do not have any lodging, so we don't see any hotel bookings or, you know, cancellations or anything like that,” Bass said. “Judging by the response to what we've been posting on social media, we've got a core crew of very, very excited local skiers and riders that are going to be here tomorrow (Friday) and through opening weekend.”
Bass said there’s about 8-6 inches of snow, depending on where skiers stand on the mountain. Bass doesn't anticipate Eldora will run out of snow.
However, Bass did say Eldora plans on using man-made snow for the next few weeks.
“If we don't get natural snow, we're prepared to make all the snow we need to get basically the whole mountain open, as long as we get some below freezing temperatures. And it does look like we're going to get those temperatures fairly soon,” Bass added with some optimism.
