Winter arrived at Snowbird Ski & Summer Resort in style with a 28-inch storm Monday and Tuesday. The storm pushed Snowbird’s season-to-date snowfall total to 69 inches and the mid-mountain base to 42 inches.
“Snowbird just went from early-season conditions to true Utah conditions in a matter of days,” said Snowbird President Bob Bonar. “A big storm like the one that rolled through this week not only makes for fantastic powder skiing, it also enables us to open more terrain.”
The new snow allowed Snowbird to open the beginner Chickadee chairlift and additional terrain Wednesday. Lifts now open at the Little Cottonwood Canyon resort include the Tram, Gadzoom, Mid-Gad, Gad 2, Wilbere and Chickadee.
Snowbird will host the 2006-07 Jeep King of the Mountain Skiing & Snowboarding World Professional Championships Saturday, Dec. 2. The world’s elite ski and snowboard athletes will battle one another on a Y-cross racecourse for the title of World Professional Champion.
Notable competitors include reigning champion Utah’s own Graham Watanabe, 2006 Olympic gold medalist Seth Wescott and Shaun Palmer, who has won world championships in multiple sports. On the women’s side, the 2006 Olympic gold, silver and bronze medalists in snowboard-cross will compete, including Tanja Frieden, Lindsey Jacobellis and Dominique Maltais.
The competition kicks off at 11 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 2, and a free concert by New Orleans’ legend Ivan Neville and Dumpstaphunk begins at 3:30 p.m. The race takes place on Snowbird’s Big Emma run in Gad Valley and is free to spectators.
Crews are putting the final touches on North America’s first ski area tunnel, the Peruvian Tunnel, and Snowbird’s new high-speed quad chairlift, Peruvian Express. Both are scheduled to open as soon as mountain conditions allow. Snowbird, along with Little Cottonwood Canyon neighbor Alta, has been named the best resort in the country by SKIING magazine five years in a row.
To see photos from the recent storms, go to
www.snowbird.com and click on Picture of the Day.
