Ski season opens early

I spoke too soon when I mentioned that the Washington Weather Alert RSS feed showed no active watches, warnings, or advisories. For the past few days, there have been winter storm warnings throughout the Cascades and Olympics.

As a consequence of all the snow that has fallen this month, several of the ski areas are opening early. My local fave Stevens Pass is actually open today, with 48″ of base and 7″ having fallen in the last 24 hours. Whistler is holding the line and will officially open on Thanksgiving, Snoqualmie opens on Friday (with 26″ at the West Summit, they’re definitely getting the short end of the snow stick yet again), and Mt. Baker (which we never got to last season) is open today with the biggest opening day snow base in a decade—70 to 80 inches!

Sadly, I don’t think we are going to be able to take advantage of any of the early skiing, at least this week. But that’s a story for another day.