There is plenty of snow in the Cascades to kick off ski season.
Three major ski areas in western Washington opened operations on Friday: the Summit at Snoqualmie, Stevens Pass and White Pass.
Opening day at Snoqualmie is limited to summit and ikon passholders, and the Pacific Crest and Little Thunder runs will be available.
The last storm to hit the Cascades gave Snoqualmie Pass 18 inches of new snow. Stevens Pass will be receiving roughly 45 inches of snow in the next week.
“With this huge storm that just came through, it looks like it’s going to be tons of fun," said snowboarder Christian Taylor as he unloaded his gear Friday morning at Snoqualmie. "I’m thinking there’s going to be a huge crowd out here."
Skiers who were out in the slopes Friday said the snow was the best they've seen in a long time.
“There’s definitely a lot of opening days where there’s rocks and shrubs that you can still see, but today it’s not like that it’s amazing it’s supper soft which is great because I’m falling a lot," said Jessie Whitaker, season pass holder at The Summit.
While the snow came early for many ski resorts, there were concerns that the warm weather was going to put a damper on the winter snow.
“It was 80 degrees in October where I was from and so we were like ‘oh gosh we’re not going to be able to start for so long’ but I don’t know it got really cold," said Whitaker.
The 85th anniversary season of Stevens Pass also began Friday, with runs opening for the Brooks, Skyline, Hogsback and Daisy chair lifts.
Stevens Pass encourages skiers to buy lift tickets, day passes and season passes in advance. Lift tickets will be limited every day to keep the runs from getting too crowded.
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