I'm too sore for a full writeup, but I wanted to note that Friday's opening conditions were spectacular.

They had three runs open: Dobie, Eagle's Swoop, and the Upper Cliffhanger / Lower Wild Turkey route. This is the first time I ever remember having a black trail on the Highlands open from the get go (ski patrol tells me it's due to new high-efficiency snow gun heads that allow them to run about 20X more guns simultaneously).

Snow was in mid-season packed powder form, and about as good as it gets for manmade snow (and much better than expected for opening day). In fact, the morning's top layer was light and soft enough to be confused with natural snow.

The Cliffhanger/Turkey run was great, with a lot of snow/terrain features that made turns interesting, and the 4 minute lift ride for 1000' vert laps was awesome as usual. But the best snow/terrain honors went to Eagle's Swoop in my opinion. For whatever reason, its snow/grooming was smoother and more consistent, and that resulted in faster cruising and a lot of variety in turn shapes since you could pick any line rather than solely letting the terrain suggest it.

Wintergreen will be flirting with rain overnight Saturday into Sunday, but the amounts are small enough that it shouldn't matter much (plus it could easily come down as snow). Cold temps resume Sunday evening. Based on the snowmaking I saw on other trails, I expect their trail count will be up to 5-6 full runs by next week, maybe more.

Thanks for the update. All the boys at the rink have been talking about getting up there and begging for a ride. Good to know the conditions are great.

I was up there today...also great conditions. Today they opened Sunrise and Tequila as well. It was a good crowd I thought for an opening weekend in early December. No long lift waits but enough people so that they had to manage loading. We are thinking about going up again tomorrow despite the rain...just depends.

I am with you on Eagle's Swoop, thought it was the best place to ski today.