Diehard skiers and snowboarders are getting their first fix of the season on the North Shore as Cypress Mountain opened some ski runs at the top of the mountain Friday. Grouse Mountain is also opening Saturday for the mountain’s 90th winter season.
Snowfall overnight on Thursday and cooler temperatures up top that make snow-making possible for Cypress and Grouse have meant this winter’s ski season is officially underway.
Openings on both mountains are being limited to certain higher-elevation runs over the weekend, although that could change if more snow starts falling.
“We did get some snow overnight right down to the base,” said Joffrey Koeman, director of sales and marketing for Cypress Mountain. “We got more than we thought we would.”
The highest ski runs on Cypress – at between 1200 and 1440 metres (4720 feet) – are in “great shape”, said Koeman.
Runs from chairlifts to the top of Mount Strachan including T-33, Tomcat and Collins were open Friday for the first day of the season. Koeman said he’s seen some regular local skiers hitting the slopes for the first time.
Crews were out overnight Thursday setting up, grooming runs and erecting fencing. “We’ve kind of been gearing up for it all week,” said Koeman.
About 90 centimetres of snow have fallen at mid-mountain over the past seven days, said Koeman, who has been watching the snow forecasts carefully.
Grouse took advantage of cooler temperatures to fire up its snow guns and get both Paradise Bowl and Heaven’s Sake runs open for Saturday morning, adding to the 60 centimetres of snow that had fallen up to Friday morning. Snowshoe areas will also open on Saturday at Grouse.
Seymour Mountain, which does not have snow making equipment, usually opens in mid-December.
“We’ve received quite a bit of snow in the past week or so. We’re getting close but we’re not quite there yet,” said spokesman Simon Whitehead.
Ski hills will likely get some help from Mother Nature. “We’re going to see a cooling trend over the next week,” said Matt MacDonald, a meteorologist with Environment Canada. Freezing levels are likely to fall to about 900 metres and several storms are predicted. “That bodes well for some good (snow) accumulation,” he said.
Looking further ahead, predictions are more difficult for this winter, said MacDonald. On one hand, a very weak La Nina system, fuelled by colder water in the equatorial Pacific, points to colder than normal temperatures.
A Pacific jet stream pushing more moisture into the area at the same time could mean more snow, said Nadine Powell, a meteorologist with the weather network.
But there are still warmer than normal ocean waters in the northern Pacific, cautioned MacDonald.
“The trend really isn’t clear for this winter,” he said. Historically, climate models are better at predicting temperatures than precipitation, he added.
“Anything beyond a two-week period is a total shot in the dark.”
The cooling trend now is in contrast to the beginning of the month, when the Lower Mainland experienced record warm temperatures, including hitting one high of 19 degrees. “They were the warmest November days ever recorded,” said MacDonald.
That is not expected to continue, however, especially in the immediate future, when cooler temperatures will likely make skiers happy.
Up on the mountain, plans are also afoot to re-open the restored historic Hollyburn Lodge in the Nordic ski area of Cypress to the public by mid-December, with an official ribbon-cutting planned for Jan. 15 – 90 years after the lodge originally opened.
-with a file from Eric MacKenzie
