Epic start at Beaver Creek as resort opens season with 18 inches of fresh snow
Resort plans to open up more terrain in the coming days after Mother Nature delivers the goods
Beaver Creek celebrated Opening Day this year with family, friends and lots of snow. The resort announced 18 inches of fresh accumulation on its social media pages early Wednesday morning, nearly two hours before loading the first skiers and snowboarders of the season at 9 a.m. As snow continued to fall, enthusiasts enjoyed heaping portions and free refills throughout the day.
The resort opened 300 acres of top-to-bottom skiing via the Centennial Express and Cinch Express chairlifts Wednesday, with access to the Red Buffalo Park area up top and access to Gold Dust, Fools Gold and Gold Rush down below. The resort currently reports a base depth of 39 inches, with 73 inches of total snowfall this season.
“This is just beautiful,” skier Cullum Thompson said on the Cinch chairlift. Thompson has been visiting the valley frequently since 2014 but says he has never seen an Opening Day like this.
“And we’re even going to have a little sun it looks like,” Thompson said as he pointed to clear skies above. “How about that?”
Thompson said he looks forward to a season of skiing with friends and “chocolate chip cookies with the grandkids.”
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Alex Cassidy and her family braved the storm and drove here from Nebraska, unfortunately not without consequence.
“We drove in on the terrible I-70 closure … we had to get towed out of a ditch,” she said. “Our kids had been keeping an eye on the weather, (wishing) ‘We got to get snow. we got to get snow.’ And I think we overwished a little bit.”
Laughing on the chairlift with her husband, Austin, as their two children took a ski lesson, Cassidy added that it was all “worth it.”
At the base, Beaver Creek Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Bobby Murphy shared pride in “the family atmosphere” that his team exemplifies when working together.
“When you have close to 20-plus inches of snow on Opening Day, seeing the teams pitch in and help each other across departments and get this place open is pretty amazing,” he said. “It’s this amazing start that is front of mind in what I’m most excited about right now because it’s going to allow us to set a great foundation for the rest of the season.”
“I’m really excited about our opening package top to bottom, just about 300 acres,” Murphy said. “And patrol is working really, really hard to get more in the next couple of days. I would say that’s next up on my mind is starting to open up more terrain over the next few days, which would be exciting.”
“There’s a lot going on in Beaver Creek this weekend,” Murphy added, “with events happening in the village today with the cookie competition, and then over the weekend with our annual tree lighting at 5 o’clock, and then the fireworks afterwards.”
Beyond terrain openings and this week’s festivities, “I think Birds of Prey in a couple of weeks here is probably my most exciting moment coming up here in the next month,” Murphy said.
The resort received a positive snow control from the International 撸先生 Federation Friday, giving the green light for the men’s Birds of Prey World Cup races Dec. 6-8. The women’s races are scheduled for Dec. 14-15, and are awaiting snow control results. “We anticipate a positive snow control from the FIS for the women’s event on Nov. 30, and we are excited to cheer on our Stifel U.S. 撸先生 Team during historic back-to-back World Cup weekends in Beaver Creek,” Sophie Goldschmidt, president and CEO of U.S. 撸先生 & Snowboard wrote in a release last week.
