Chester Bullock’s Guide to Colorado Skiing

Colorado Ski Country has started a petition to have a special plate designed to reflect skiing/ snowboarding in Colorado. I think it is a great idea, and the first special plate I would actually be interested in having. To learn more and participate in the petition, go to www.coloradoski.com/LicensePlate/.

This isn’t a ski related thing, but the Red Bull Soap Box Derby is at Red Rocks this weekend. I am pulling for Team Save Ferris. The amount of engineering that has gone into this car is incredible. Hoping I can make it out there to see it perform.

A powder day at Loveland today? Probably not, but 8″ of wet snow is preferable at this time of year. 4″ at the Basin isn’t bad either. Hope this is a sign of how the season is going to shape up. I also updated my incoming snow report feeds. I was getting old data on one, and since this is all automated, that old data was working it’s way onto the site. Should be fixed now.

Starting to work on a better presentation for road conditions and the messaging on the VMS signs (the big message boards on the highway). Going to take some time, but it will be pretty cool I think. Stay tuned.

BTW - areas must be hurting in terms of pass sales. Seems that several have extended purchase dates to mid-November. Last year they shut them down promptly at the end of September. I know there was a big article in the paper last weekend about the problems they are seeing. I know that personally we are not planning to go up as often this year. Passes for a family of four are not cheap, and we did not buy them this season…

I updated the Colorado ski areas cam page today. As usual in the off-season, a number of the Vail Resorts cams are offline, meaning you might not see an image where one should be. This gets ironed out as places open.

I am headed to Durango this weekend to visit Ft. Lewis with my daughter. Haven’t been down there for 2 years now I think, it’ll be good to be back in that part of the state for a weekend.

Yesterday was my birthday, which is typically followed by Opening Day, generally within a few days. Well, today is that day. The 2008/09 Colorado Ski Season officially opens this morning with Arapahoe Basin and Loveland Basin opening for business. Each is reporting 18″, but since that is the minimum number allowed for reporting by Colorado Ski Country, I’d be willing to bet it is less than 18″, and significantly less than that in spots. I am not going today, but if you are/ did, I’d love to hear about it.

This morning I updated the opening dates. As usual, lift ticket pricing is nowhere close to being released, so those numbers are still from 2007-08. Opening dates for A-Basin and Loveland are approximations. Loveland could open earlier than 10/24, but the Basin just started making snow yesterday, so who knows.

Next round of updates (today or tomorrow) will involve the cameras. Although that will be in flux until all of the areas are open, since some are simply turned off for summer.

Also, I will be updating this years Mountain Sports Club offers as those come in. They are still finalizing some things, but the price via my site is $6.95 (promo code bd08).

It sure felt like winter down here in Denver all weekend (minus the snow). I need to get my boat winterized. But I am glad to see the cooler temps - come on winter!

OK people, I have started some updates to the site. Things may be in flux the next few days. I added a proper blog system to make updates easier when I am on the road. I have an interesting mapping concept I need to build. And I have to figure out how to pull snow report info for Vail Resorts since they pulled out of Ski Country. Oh well, no biggie I suppose. At least the snowmaking has begun at Loveland. They might even be open in a week and a half. How cool is that?