TEMP
40°F
Trails
60
Happy Holidays!
Father Christmas seems to be in our corner talking to Mother Nature & Old Man Winter as snowmaking has been able to continue pretty much daily for what seems like forever. Our team is extremely busy this week making and pushing snow around before we open up for daily operations this Friday!
Snowmaking Continues to Press East
The different approach we took this year with focusing our efforts on our largest trails first is paying off. Today we are finishing up the snowmaking on all our trails around Comet and will be moving all of our portable guns to the East. Snowmaking has already begun on Carver, Superstition, & Whitewolf and will start on the lower green trails such as Whitetail, Meadowridge and Stonebridge. Here’s a little timeline on our plans:
By Friday we expect to have everything in blue open. This is nearly 100 acres of terrain from High Traverse to Miracle open tree line to tree line. This weekend the team will completely rebuild the Grom Park and in lower Aspen we are hosting the Cheddar Tour with another rail jam set up. After that Aspen will become our early season medium sized park before we build in the East.
OPEN THIS WEEKEND
As I said earlier we have begun the push East towards Cupid and our intentions are to open terrain as it becomes available which next would be Superstition to the lower Green Trails of Whitetail, Cottonwood, Adios, Snowflake and more to get back to Mystery.
PLAN TO OPEN MID-WEEK THE WEEK OF DECEMBER 12, 2022
Once we get to this point we will split up our snowmaking team and continue east while heading west! It is our desire and our goal to have Cupid & Dasher spinning by Christmas. Cupid will be spinning likely the weekend of the 17th. We will leave the extreme east & west for our last snowmaking but know that if we have the capability we will continue to push.
MY CHRISTMAS WISH
I do think we’ll get this and more by then if Mother Nature continues to work with us! I was watching the news the other day and it does appear that we are going to be in a continued cold trend at night with daytime temps near the low 30s. These of course are goals and we are at the mercy of the temperature and the wet bulb.
WHY OUR APPROACH IS A LITTLE DIFFERENT…
You may notice that some other resorts may have 100% of their terrain open. It’s awesome and I applaud them but our approach is different. We like to BURY our trails for the entire season not just for a few weeks and we aim to make enough snow to last well into April weeks if not a month after many of our Wisconsin resorts have already closed. We maintain the quality of snow through extensive grooming, winching and renovating our terrain. Others will come back to their trails but for us because of the amount of terrain we have we like to finish before we head out. Sometimes it doesn’t work out and we have to go back but this year we are really hoping to be finished up so that we are only doing some spot checks in January.
SANTA IS COMING
Santa called me last night and wanted to come in to groom for us again this year. He says it’s a little more relaxing than the days leading up to the big day. We worked out a deal that he could groom a little as long as he allowed some kids to tag along. Reservations will be necessary and we’ll have them live later this week from our event calendar. Rides will be $20 per ride with up to two passengers allowed per 5-10 minute ride. We will offer these Saturday, December 17th from 12pm – 3pm. Reservations will fill up fast!
LAST MINUTE SHOPPING IDEAS
I’m behind in my holiday shopping big time. But honestly with winter and now two kids, yes the little man Logan (6) is now rocking the slopes weekly, I’ll be hitting up Vicki and our ski shop for some gear. If you don’t know Vicki where have you been. This woman has been a fixture at Granite Peak for nearly three decades and she oversees our retail shop for Granite Peak and now Snowriver Mountain! The shop is stocked full of logo wear items as well as a huge amount of outerwear, accessories, and more. We have Granite Peak items as well as some new GP Parks gear. Hestra, Scott, Spy, Smith, and Helly Hansen are just some of the brands she carries. Season Passholders remember you get 20% off in the retail shop always! Drop in or grab a gift card and use it towards something your favorite skier or snowboarder can use towards something to shred the slopes.
You don’t have to read it – listen to my son, Ronan. He knows….
Hope to see you out on the slopes!
Greg
With the rise in popularity of backcountry skiing, and the fact this is mostly state park land, what is Granite’s policy on uphill travel?
Thanks for your comment Mike. I am open to this but not until after the holidays and our snowmaking operations cease as we still have plenty to do to get terrain open. I would like to create an approved route(s) that can be used prior to opening so that our grooming team is aware of them and Uphill travel is safe. WE will be discussing internally and I hope to come out with a plan around the first of the year.
Any chance Cupid will be open by next weekend? See in the above post that it may be in the cards but wasn’t too sure.
Good luck with the snow-making and can’t wait to hit the slopes!
At this time it’s not likely due to the fact that we won’t be making snow again until late this week. The forecasted low temperatures changed and are too high for operations until late this week. Our focus continues to be on expanding as quickly as possible to gain access to both Cupid and Dasher lifts for the Christmas Holiday period. I do anticipate that happening but just don’t believe Cupid is in the cards for the 17th at this time.
Hello, is it true that only 1 of the 3 real lifts will run the week of 12/19 to 12/23? Just trying to confirm if you are open yet.