Heavy rain is reaching high into the mountains and further delaying Washington's ski season from entering full swing.
Mission Ridge south of Wenatchee still plans to spin lifts Friday, but the rest of the state's ski areas remain in a holding pattern. Crystal Mountain Resort near Mount Rainier will stay closed through Friday after missing a targeted Nov. 28 opening date. Stevens Pass was forced to postpone its planned Dec. 5 opening.
The Summit at Snoqualmie's artificial snow has dwindled to a few patches while last week's deep midmountain snow drifts at Alpental are now pockmarked with puddles. A washout on Highway 906 between Summit Central and Hyak may also complicate traffic at the Summit when the season does kick off.
Ski area management hoping for a weather pattern change have mixed outlooks.
The forecast is looking pretty gnarly. I’m counting five different atmospheric rivers in the 16-day outlook," said Mount Baker Ski Area's Mike Trowbridge.
More optimistically, Crystal Mountain's Wednesday operations update reported, "After a wallop of rain on Monday and some decent overnight snow coming into Tuesday, it's a great reminder that our snowpack hinges on only a couple degrees of temp difference, and could change for the better rapidly.
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