Park City Mountain Resort joined the party Sunday, firing up a couple of lifts on the Canyons Village side to become the fifth ski and snowboard area in Utah to open this season.
Brighton got the jump on the season by opening at noon Nov. 22 to beat out its Big Cottonwood Canyon neighbor, Solitude, by four hours. Alta Ski Area and Brian Head both opened on Nov. 24.
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Warm weather caused a delay in the start to Utah’s ski and snowboard season. Though most resorts pushed their openers back only a few days, continued unseasonably high temperatures and lack of precipitation could cause problems for those resorts and the ones that haven’t opened yet. In Park City, where Deer Valley also hopes to be up and running by Saturday, highs will be in the low 50s, according to the National Weather Service, and the overnight temperatures will barely dip below freezing. Ogden and Eden will have similar daytime temps but will be colder at night. Meanwhile, the Cottonwood Canyon resorts shouldn’t have any trouble keeping the snow they make, with highs in the mid-30s and lows in the 20s. That’s good news for Snowbird, which is planning to delve into its 50th season Wednesday.
As far as snow goes, though, it doesn’t look good. Jim Steenburgh, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Utah and the author of the Wasatch Weather Weenies blog, surmised in jest on Friday that “it won’t ever snow again.” He came to that conclusion by extrapolating out the snow and precipitation models depicted in a Global Forecast Systems graph for Mount Baldy — both of which were completely blank. Steenburgh noted, however, that the model is only predictive of the next seven days, so there is hope on the horizon.
Here’s the latest on when each of Utah’s 15 resorts expects to start the 2021-22 season. This list will be updated as the openers come into focus:
Alta
Open
Beaver Mountain
Wednesday, Dec. 22
Brian Head
Open
Brighton
Open
Cherry Peak
Tuesday, Dec. 21
Deer Valley
Open
Eagle Point
Open
Nordic Valley
Open
Park City Mountain Resort
Open
Powder
Open
Snowbasin
Open
Snowbird
Open
Solitude
Open
Sundance
Open
Woodward Park City
Open
