Sunlight Mountain to open second lift on Friday
Glenwood Springs Post Independent
Troy Hawks/Courtesy Photo
With its second weekend stretch of the season approaching and a late-week storm bearing down, Sunlight Mountain Resort plans to open more terrain for skiers and riders Friday.
“We are going to get the Segundo lift going. We’re pretty excited about that,” Sunlight Marketing & Sales Director Troy Hawks said Wednesday.
The mountain opened for its 52nd season last Friday with the lower Tercero lift operating all weekend.
“We had a lot of excited folks and a lot of good winter stoke last weekend,” Hawks added.
By the end of last weekend, four runs were skiable on the mountain.
With the resort’s opening of the Segundo lift, it at least doubles the terrain available for visitors to the Glenwood Springs-area ski resort.
Intermediate runs including Peace Pipe, Dawson, Crystal, Cornice and maybe White River are expected to open, Hawks said.
The storm that hit the mountain last Saturday dropped around 4 inches on most of the mountain, with some areas getting up to 8 inches of fresh snow, he said.
“Once our crews made it further up the mountain they realized we had an additional amount of snow than previously recorded,” Hawks said.
With the Tercero and Segundo lifts open and servicing the lower mountain, all that remains is the upper Primo lift.
Hawks believes one more good storm and they will be able to get the Primo lift running, providing full top-to-bottom skiing.
“We are really close to opening up the top, if the snow comes through like we hope it will,” he said.
Snow began falling again Wednesday on the mountain, and forecasts are calling for a winter storm to hit the Roaring Fork Valley heading into the weekend with 70 percent chance of snow both Thursday and Friday.
“With more snow in the forecast, we are optimistic that we can get even more terrain open soon,” Hawks said.
The optimistic outlook has the resort considering opening for a full seven days a week by Dec. 7, a week earlier than the original planned opening of Dec. 14. For now, Sunlight will be open Friday through Sunday again, and then close until Dec. 7.
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