After a sloppy start to the winter, the rain has turned to snow on the North Shore mountains.
"This season's basically been all snowmaking. The runs that didn't have snowmaking on haven't been open until now," said Joffrey Koeman, marketing director for Cypress Mountain.
With approximately 21 centimetres of new snow last week, Cypress has opened its Nordic ski and snowshoe trails. The resort also opened another ski hill and another chairlift since last week, giving skiers eight runs to shush down.
With snow guns forming much of the base, Cypress now has about 125 cm of snow at mid-mountain, according to the resort's website.
The story is much the same on Mount Seymour where the mountain revved up its Mystery Peak Express quad chair for the first time this year Jan. 10.
"The rain that was here last week has now turned to snow," said Emmalee Brunt, communications coordinator at the resort.
The mountain has seen 34 cm in the last 72 hours, Brunt said on Tuesday.
The freezing level has been hovering between 800 and 1,000 metres, according to Brunt. The base is about 155 cm at the summit, and approximately 74 cm lower on the mountain, she said.
Seymour currently has 11 ski runs open, as well as the toboggan park, and is hoping the weather will allow them to open a few more. The resort opened its snowshoe trails Tuesday.
With its large fleet of snow guns, Grouse Mountain has a base of 151 cm at the peak, according to Grouse Mountain public relations manager Jacqueline Blackwell.
Grouse opened additional terrain Saturday and had eight runs open as of Tuesday.
