A partly cloudy ski and the Southern Cascade Mountain range created a beautiful scene at the top of the Great White Express ski lift at the White Pass Ski Area in this January 2016 file photo.
A healthy dose of snow in the Cascade Mountains has ushered the holiday season in early for skiers and snowboarders. Those accumulations mean White Pass Ski Area will open the slopes for the winter season this morning, at least a week and a half earlier than the weather allows in most years.
“It’s always nice to be open the weekend before Thanksgiving if you can because it sets you up nicely for that four-day weekend, and beyond,” Kevin McCarthy, general manager at White Pass Ski Area, told The Chronicle. “That and it just takes some of the pressure off because you’ve got snow.”
White Pass picked up around 8 inches of snow between Wednesday and Thursday this week and then added as much as 8 more inches at the summit between Thursday and Friday morning. That recent snowfall brought the total snowpack up to 45 inches at the summit and 24 inches at the base with temperatures between 27 and 22 degrees on Friday, respectively.
Although there is enough snow to open, McCarthy advised that like most seasons there are still places where powderheads should exercise caution.
“We won’t have the steeps open, and as we always like to say, early in the season there’s a lot of terrain out there. You don’t have the deep snowpack that fills in all the rolls, which in some cases it’s a lot more fun in the early season, but you’ve got to pay attention,” explained McCarty.
Over on the bunny slope, visitors to White Pass will notice a few upgrades intended to take some of the sting out of those first awkward trips down the hill. McCarty noted that they’ve added a covered carpet for transporting skiers and boarders up the hill and also extended the length of a pre-existing carpet lift.
“If you’re a beginner or novice we’ve completely revamped the learning areas,” said McCarty, who compared the carpet lifts to the conveyor belt style walkways found at airports. “It takes the difficulty of getting up the hill out of the equation. Even with chairlifts if you’re a beginner it can be difficult to get on or off the chair.”
McCarty noted that one of the carpet lifts is 400 feet long and with the covering visitors get to enjoy a few moments out of the the direct elements.
“The rope tow is a thing of the past,” said McCarty.
Visitors can expect to find enjoyable conditions all over the ski area, but McCarty expects that the rides will get even better as we get a little deeper into winter.
“It’s good because it’s early. We’re in good shape compared to most years,” said McCarty. “You never turn down an opening day.”
The most current snow conditions at White Pass can be found online at www.skiwhitepass.com/snow-report, or by calling 509-672-3100.
