The earliest that they've ever made snow.

https://www.summitdaily.com/news/sports/arapahoe-basin-ski-area-begins-snowmaking-friday-the-earliest-start-in-a-decade/

Loveland countdown is set for snowmaking to start on 9/28/18.  Any bets as to which one opens first? :-)

Loveland has installed their first detachable quad.  It's a replacement for Lift 1, to be called Chet's Dream after a naming contest during the summer.  Replaces a fixed-grip triple that was 36 years old and took 8 min.  Chet's Dream will be a 3-min ride.  Loveland celebrates 80 years this season.

https://theknow.denverpost.com/2018/07/31/loveland-ski-area-new-chairlift/191152/

A Basin should almost always win the "who opens first" race. Why? A Basin only needs to cover 600 feet of vert to open while Loveland has to cover about 1000 feet.

Both are north facing, but Loveland's base elevation is 20 feet higher.

It looks like good snowmaking temps return Friday night (5th) and continue thru all of next week. Also natural snow is in the forecast for many days.

I think there a good chance that the Basin (maybe Loveland, too) will open next week Friday -- the 12th.

You heard it here first.

Only 25 snow guns? I guess that's to be expected considering the amount of natural stuff the Rockies gets, but it's nice to see something the east coast resorts have over the western ones

Justinw303 wrote:

Only 25 snow guns? I guess that's to be expected considering the amount of natural stuff the Rockies gets, but it's nice to see something the east coast resorts have over the western ones

Don't know if you're saying the Basin only will use 25 guns. If so, you need to remember the area only has to cover 600 feet of vert to open. So that's about one gun for every 25 feet of vert.

From the article:

Though A-Basin has approximately 25 total snow guns in its fleet

 Sure sounds like they're saying the entire resort only has 25 snow guns

My observations is that out west in the Rockies the numbers that people talk about are skiable acreage and snow depth while in the Mid-Atlantic and northeast the number of snowguns is easy to find in marketing material and press releases.  In the west, only the big destination resorts mention the number of snowguns in early season marketing materials.  Meaning those associated with big marketing budgets like Vail Resorts or Alterra.

Snowmaking in the west used to end just before the end of year holiday period.  It was a 2-month job.  Snowmakers either went home (New Zealanders at Loveleand) or moved into other jobs.  Still the case at Alta.  The man who was running the groomer I got to ride in a few years ago was in his first season working at a ski resort.  He went out west looking to get away from a boring IT job.  Proved himself on the snowmaking team and then became a groomer.

Well, snowmaking at the Basin has pretty much been a bust til today. I expected snowmaking Firday, Saturday and Sunday nights and got none of it. It started in earnest last night.

Further, it looks like maybe 8 inches fell last night, and at least one forecast calls for two feet of fresh today and tomorrow. The same forecaster thinks the Basin will still open on Friday.. It'll need all of that two feet to do so, IMO

https://www.snow-forecast.com/countries/USA-Colorado/resorts