MONARCH MOUNTAIN — Ski bums have another option to hit the slopes thanks to our recent snowfall across the high country.
Monarch Mountain, which solely relies on natural snowfall, kicked off its season Wednesday. The mountain made a very quick decision to open after being on hold, and getting off to a late start because of a lack of snow. Last week's snowstorm changed that quickly.
They've now gotten a lot of the mountain open. Skiers came Wednesday looking for a fun opening day. According to skiers, they were pleasantly surprised by the snow being better than they expected.
"It's really good, they got a lot of fresh powder in there, there's nothing like the real thing," said Camron, who was out enjoying the slopes on Wednesday.
"Operating on all-natural snow, of course, snow falls on all of the runs," said Dan Bender with Monarch Mountain Ski Area. "So we're able to open our green and blue terrain and some of our more general black."
More than half of the runs opened up Wednesday, which is a later start than normal for Monarch Mountain. The mountain opened last season on December 1st, 2022.
Mountain managers watched an incoming snowstorm last weekend. They hoped it would be what's known as the "Monarch Mountain cloud phenomenon," which is a storm where the clouds catch the peaks and hang there, dumping snow onto the mountain.
"We got a phone call Saturday saying get up here on Sunday and start prep and we're doing it on Wednesday," said Bender.
This kind of old-school snow at the resort is loved by the locals.
"It's just kind of feels like everyone knows everyone, even if you don't know everyone," said Alli who hit the slopes of Monarch Mountain on opening day.
"I just love Monarch," said Camron. "I love the small mountain feel. Everybody here is super cool, everybody loves to hang out."
Although it was sunny Wednesday at Monarch Mountain, there's snow in the forecast for this weekend. The mountain managers say that the fun will just get better with each snowstorm.
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