Snowmaking at Liberty. Thanks to cold temperatures and snowmaking, Pennsylvania’s Liberty Mountain Resort was able to grab a pre-December opening date. Photo provided by Liberty Mountain Resort.

The beginner area, Sneaky Pete, and the Snowboard Park were the only runs open. Lift tickets were $20.00 for all day. Not a bad deal considering the snow was pretty good during the day.

Conditions were packed machine powder with a bit of an icy base - typical conditions for this part of the country. Despite the limited terrain, it was really good to strap on the boards and hit the slopes.

Due to the shortage of trails the snowboard park was open to skiers as well. It was well worth taking advantage of. The terrain is slightly steeper than Sneaky Pete and by evening, a great line of machine-made powder was built up along the left side.

Liberty turned the snow guns back on at about 8 p.m. - good thing with the predicted warm spell coming.

Not bad for the first day of the season. Don’t hope for too many more trails being open this weekend. I’m told that tonight is the last night the snow guns will be out until next weekend due to the warmer temperatures heading this way.

One side note for folks planning on renting skis - Liberty has tuned the entire stock of rental skis. Unfortunately, they weren’t tuned very well. Edges are sharpened all the way to the tips leading for some awkward steering and unpredictable running. I tried two different pairs with the same results. So if you feel funny on a pair of rentals - its probably not because you’re just getting used to skis again.

Editor’s Note: Liberty investigated the tuning problem noticed by Jim and is in the process of detuning affected rental skis to address the problem. Jim reports that skiing should now be great on the fleet of rental skis.