Arapahoe Basin ski area in Colorado has announced that it will open for its 23-24 season on Sunday, 29th October and will most likely be the first area to 'properly open' in North America.
Arapahoe Basin will open for the season, Sunday, October 29 at 8:30 AM with Black Mountain Express and the High Noon trail.
The high altitude resort is one of several that has been snowmaking, on and off, for most of October. A warm spell in the latter half of the month made it seem less likely anywhere would be able to open this month, but a recent temperature drop and some natural snowfall have improved matters.
US ski media focussed on a small ski area in Massachusetts, Ski Ward, creating a small area of snow using an all-weather snowmaking machine a week ago and deciding that was the North American season start, but its up to personal choice as to whether you consider that the season start.
The Trollhaugen ski area in Wisconsin had created a similar small snow area, in its case using snow stored through the summer from last winter earlier in October.
There's also always a chance somewhere else will manage to open today and beat Arapahoe Basin to it.