This post is courtsley of guest blogger John Trousdale
When my alarm went off at 5:15 today I questioned whether it was worth it. Just under four hours later I found my answer: yes, it was. Today Sven Brunso and I made the trek to Wolf Creek Ski Area for opening day with October 8th setting the new record as the earliest opening ever. Wolfie was 100% open with natural snow before most resorts have even fired up their snowmaking.
However, in my opinion the real record should be for the for quality and quantity of snow. Good thing I had my super sweet Flylow Magnum pants and Flylow jacket to keep me warm and dry. This storm must have come in wet and heavy and gotten progressively lighter the base felt super solid but it was light and fluffy on top. Conditions were almost mid-winter good. Not bad for a single 44 storm
Sven and I made a few laps in untouched trees before we were able to force ourselves to break out the camera. Even then, there was plenty of pow left to go around. Ill say it again: I cant believe the conditions. This is early October!
Thanks to Wolf Creek for making this happen it took a lot of work to get the crew together and get this place open with such short notice. Thanks also to all the people who showed up and contributed to the killer vibe, and to Flylow for the awesome gear. Hopefully there will be many more days like this to come in 2011. Heres the view from the 4th chair on opening day 2011.
Words by John Trousdale
Photos by Sven Brunso and John Trousdale