From CypressMountain.com:

Judging from the sounds of this, they may plan to pull snow off other runs on the mountain… I can’t think of any other reason why they’d be forced to close the mountain to the public if this weren’t the case.

Oh well, here’s hoping for tons of snow in February to make up for it because if they do end up farming the snow off the rest of the mountain, we’re not going to have much of a season left come March 9th.

VANCOUVER — While recent winter rains have washed North Vancouver skiing business downhill, 2010 Olympics officials insist they’ve got enough snow stockpiled to run Olympic events at Cypress Mountain.

Cypress is home to aerial and mogul skiing and to snowboarding, snow-cross and ski-cross events.

Tim Gayda, 2010′s vice-president of sport, said a decision won’t be made until Wednesday whether to take over the mountain three weeks earlier than planned.

“They’re going to look at it on Wednesday,” said Gayda Monday. “It will largely depend on what the future weather will bring. It’s a pretty big decision.”

Plans called for VANOC to take control of the mountain and close it for skiing on Feb. 1.

He said the recent warm, wet weather wasn’t unexpected.

“We’ve looked at this and many other scenarios in terms of having too much snow or very cold temperatures,” said Gayda.

He said Olympic planners took steps last year, during colder weather, to blow “a massive amount of artificial snow” onto the venue courses.

“When we saw this warming trend, we worked with the mountain to look at all the places where there was natural snow and we started to stockpile it,” he said. “When you push it into these big piles, it insulates it a lot better. There’s thousands of cubic metres of snow in each pile.”

Seeing as there’s less than three weeks remaining until they’re scheduled to shut down for the Olympics anyways, I guess that’d mean that should they decide to close public access early it would be effective immediately.

I’d expect passholders would receive some sort of a bonus to make up for the additional closure period, but only time will tell.

Click here for the complete story at VancouverSun.com.

Press Release – Cypress Mountain Opens Tomorrow!

Friday November 13, 2009

WEST VANCOUVER , BRITISH COLUMBIA – Cypress Mountain is pleased to announce we will be opening tomorrow Friday, November 13th, 2009 for the third earliest opening in our history!

Our alpine area will operate 9am – 4pm daily with Easy Rider Chair on Friday. We will continue to open more lifts and terrain as the snow comes.

The Cross Country area will also open for the season Friday, operating 9am – 4pm with the lower trails available on early season conditions.

Snowshoeing and tubing will require more snow to open.

The spectacular new Cypress Creek Lodge will be open from 9am-4pm, featuring the Crazy Raven Bar and Grill.

The Ticket Office, Rentals, Snow School, Food and Beverage, Guest Relations (pass processing) and Retail Store will all be open for service.

The Cypress Mountain Shuttle Bus will run daily – schedule available at www.cypressmountain.com

According to Cypress Mountain’s website, they may open this coming Friday, November 13th.

Not a major opening as it would only be the Easy Rider lift, which accesses some pretty tame terrain, but a hopefully an indicator of things to come!

To add, judging by this story’s feature photo, looks like a few guys have been hiking for the goods already.

From Cypress Mountain:

There is a good possibility of Easy-Rider Chair opening this Friday!!

Check CypressMountain.com for updates!

In a nutshell:

• Limited parking all season long, with Lodge Lot and Lot 1 closed all year
• Eagle Chair will be completely closed or highly impacted all season long
• Rainbow run off Lions’ Express will be closed or highly impacted all season long
• Ski area completely closed to skiing from February 1 through March 8

Not really complaining as it’s hard to go wrong with a $269 season’s pass, but the big question remains is where does that leave Raven Ridge? If we can’t access via Panorama from the top of Eagle Express and Lot 1 is also closed, does that mean Raven Ridge will also be closed or will we still be able to walk around Lot 1?

Plus, not sure why Rainbow on the Lions’ Express side of the mountain will be highly impacted or closed all year long. Perhaps they’re using that run for snow farming in the event they don’t have enough snow? Can’t really see any other reason why they’d have that closed but maybe we’ll get some answers soon. I’ve emailed Guest Services for clarification on these points and will post back with my findings.

Hopefully they have a plan in place to maintain access to some of the best new terrain on the mountain!

Click here for the complete report.

Check it out at www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/2010/

Nordic passes are still available, and they’ll be releasing ski card details and pricing soon.

Keep tabs on their website here.

Glad I got mine when I did!

Blackcomb served up some epic early season powder conditions last weekend (November 4-5, 2005) with Catskinner and Jersey Cream Chairs opening with powder conditions. Sketchy conditions persisted for the bottom half of Solar Coaster, but this Rememberance Day weekend has conditions and coverage vastly improving.

Blackcomb is now open for daily, seven days a week, operations from here on in, with Whistler opening for the season on November 24, 2005.

In local Vancouver skiing news, Cypress is really shaping up nicely with a 100cm+ base. Opening day on Cypress (November 9… earliest ever) was extremely wet, but now that we’re past this brief warming trend, snow is again starting to fall and things are looking good. Rememebrance Day was almost a powder day, and the rest of this long weekend is looking good too with cooler conditions continuing along with precipitation. If all goes according to plan, bases will continue to build… 2005/06 ski season is ON!