Ski areas in California are celebrating after a huge Christmas snowstorm deposited up to 1.8m (6 feet) of snowfall on their slopes.
Most had been suffering one of the worst season starts in history until the storm arrived, either unable to open at all due to the warm and wet weather that dominate November and December, or in the case of some of the largest ski areas like The Palisades, reporting only 3 of their nearly 300 slopes open. It has reported 160cm (5.3 feet) of snowfall and is now up to 33 runs open as it battles to make runs safe to open more.
Unfortunately, the poor conditions continued through the key Thanksgiving Holidays and Christmas was largely lost as blizzard conditions also stopped slopes opening due to high avalanche danger, power outages and similar resulting issues. Now though, skies have cleared and resorts are opening up their terrain at last., whilst warning of tree well and avalanche danger off groomed runs.
"We're now 90% open!" a spokesperson for Mt. Rose - Ski Tahoe said, adding, "We've received over 6 feet of new snow in the last 5 days, and conditions couldn't be better. Slide Bowl had a stellar bluebird opening day today, and all Main Side and Slide Bowl trails are now open! Huge shoutout to our Mountain Operations crews for their incredible work getting Slide terrain open."
Mammoth Mountain in Southern California had the most terrain open on the US West Coast prior to the snowstorm, about 40% of its slopes, but was completely closed on the 26th and 27th December due to high avalanche danger, with two of its team injured whilst carrying out avalanche mitigation work. It is yet to post snowfall totals but indications (buried slope and road signs) are that its had more than 2 metres.