Heidi Salisbury sent out a warning Friday to skiers who might head to Powder King this weekend.
The resort near Mackenzie is living up to its name, with an abundance of powder snow, and she's advising skiers and snowboarders to stick to the packed trails. She just doesn't want any of her customers to disappear on the slopes.
"The skiing is good and it's still early in the season so a lot of our areas aren't maintained by the groomers yet, so if you get off those maintained areas you might sink into the powder," said Salisbury, Powder King's co-owner. "We don't have much for a [packed] base and if you stop you might have to dig and hike out, but lots of people like it."
Powder King got hit with 25 centimetres of new snow between Thursday and Friday. Snow has been falling daily since Powder King opened for the season a week ago and the chair lift and T-bar at the top are operating. Twelve of the 37 runs have been groomed.
The resort will be open for weekends (Thursday to Sunday) each week until the Dec. 23, when it begins daily operation through the Christmas holidays.
Powder King's ski bus leaves Prince George from Pine Centre Mall at 6 a.m. and from Fabricland at Hart Centre Mall at 6:20 a.m. every day the ski hill is open. Call 1-866-769-5464 to book a seat. Watch powderking.com for updated snow reports.
Purden Ski Village, 60 km east of Prince George, is expected to open for the season today and Sunday. Purden's 25 runs are accessed by three lifts. Check purden.com for up-to-date conditions.
Tabor Mountain, located a 15-minute drive from downtown Prince George, still needs more snow to open. Go to tabormountain.com for the snow report. In the city, Hart Highlands Winter Club at 4186 Montgomery Cres., is still a few snowfalls away from an opening date. Phone 250-962-8006 for updates.
Skiers started carving up Marmot Basin in Jasper when it opened on Nov. 9, the earliest opening date ever for the Alberta resort. The trick to getting the early start is snowmaking equipment installed on Marmot's lower slopes in 2006. Marmot's season now regularly lasts into May. So far this season, the resort has received 144 cm of natural snow, and the base at mid-mountain is 60cm.
"Conditions are superb," said Brian Rode, Marmot's vice-president of sales and marketing.
"We now have every lift on the mountain open. The Knob chair opened on Tuesday. We can't believe we're skiing these sorts of conditions in November."
Canadian Rockies Express, Marmot's high-speed quad chair installed in 2009, is now the longest in the Canadian Rockies, and it lifts skiers and boarders up 596 vertical metres. In 2011, Marmot (skimarmot,com) built its Paradise high-speed quad chair and the School House triple chair.
"The new lifts get the people up faster and have changed the way the people ski the mountain," said Rode. "Canadian Rockies Express goes from the bottom right to the top, and people are skiing top to bottom."
Ski Smithers opened for the season last Friday. There of the four lifts -- Prairie, Panorama, Little Rascal -- are now in operation, and 16 of the 37 runs are open. Ski Smithers has a packed base of more than 100 centimetres, and a mid-mountain base of 75 cm, with light snow expected this weekend.
Unless the weather changes in a hurry, Troll Mountain east of Quesnel is still another week away from opening, says general manager Hildur Fossberg-Sinclair. Troll (trollskiresort.com) has three T-bars and 500 vertical metres of terrain.
"We have a foot of snow at the top, six inches at the bottom, not quite enough to get the track-packing down," said Fossberg-Sinclair. "It's looking like we'll be open on the 14th. We've got some new runs and a cappucchino T-bar lounge and have done some renovations to the lodge so it should be an exciting year once we get going."
Murray Ridge near Fort St. James (murrayridge.com) is also waiting for snow.
In the cross-country department, the trails at Otway Nordic Centre have been open for freestyle (skating) technique use for a couple weeks, but the home of the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club still needs deeper snow for groomers to set most classic tracks.
"Conditions are fair -- we still have some rocks and debris on the trails and the (Dog On It) dog trail is still pretty rough," said Otway office manager Lanita Young. "The new part of the dog trail is going to be awesome trail when we get another foot of snow but right now it's soft and not suitable for skating."
Young is recommending skiers stick to the Pine Flats, Antlers, Fingers, and Iceman Cutoff trails which are flatter and have enough snow for classic skiing. The upper trails -- Cranbrook Hill climb, Sawmill Loop and Hickory Wing are closed, but its open season at Northern Lights, Up the Creek and the west end of Hickory Wing. Go to caledonianordic.com for more information.
