Beaver Creek opens as Vail area slammed with nearly 3 feet of new snow this week

Stupid amounts of powder at Beaver Creek on Wednesday (Vail Resorts photo).

Beaver Creek opened for the season Wednesday with a massive 17-inch powder day.

Nearby Vail has seen nearly 3 feet of new snow since Sunday night.

Hopefully, mountain ops crews can start turning all of that new snow into a lot more open terrain at both resorts, as early season scenarios are currently in play, with a few hundred acres of skiable terrain available for snow riding.

Beaver Creek opened today with around 300 of its overall 2,082 acres of skiable terrain. Vail on Tuesday was offering up a little more than 300 of its overall 5,317 skiable acres. Expect that to change as the Thanksgiving holiday week rolls on.

Vail this week has enjoyed 9 inches of new snow overnight Sunday into Monday, followed by 3 inches new on the Tuesday morning snow report and now a whopping 20 inches throughout the day Tuesday and overnight into Wednesday.

You read that right: a 32-inch total for the week at Vail. It’s now boasting a 46-inch settled base, and 79 inches for the season. Obviously, based on early-season snowfall alone, the entire front side of the mountain could be open, if not most of the Back Bowls.

Beaver Creek’s opening day snow report reads like this: 19 inches in the last 48 hours, 17 in the last 24 hours, 28 inches in the last week, 73 for the season, and a 39-inch settled base.

That’s all as of the 5:30 a.m. snow reports. As of 7 a.m. Wednesday, snow was still falling at in EagleVail at the base of Beaver Creek at an intense rate.

Opensnow.com meteorologist Joel Gratz simply wrote this on Wednesday morning:

“Wow! From Monday night to Wednesday morning, snow totals were 10-30 inches at most mountains, and most of this snow was split between Tuesday during the day and Tuesday night. That means this morning, Wednesday, should be an amazing powder morning. Get out there!”

Be extremely careful if you’re considering a trip into the backcountry. Check first with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.

Editor’s note: Vail opened Chairs 11 and 14 on Thursday, along with several more runs off of Chair 2, resulting in more than 500 acres of total skiable terrain. Forecasters are calling for 10-plus days of cool, dry weather, with the next storm expected around Dec. 9-10.