TRAVERSE CITY — Northern Michigan’s winter skiing and snowboarding season is racing out of the gate as several area resorts are planning to open their facilities this weekend.
Crystal Mountain Resort in Thompsonville, Boyne USA near Boyne Falls, Gaylord’s Treetops resort, Cadillac’s Caberfae Peaks and Nubs Nob near Harbor Spring are among the region’s resorts opening their ski and snowboard runs this weekend. Others are taking advantage of a cold and snowy start to the winter season to ramp up snow-making activity and get their operations open before the Christmas holiday period or sooner.
“Snowmaking is always a big factor, especially early in the year,” said Brittney Primeau, director of communications at Crystal Mountain which opened for the season Friday.
Primeau said the resort has been making snow since early November, and its 179 snow guns can cover the resort’s main mountain with a foot of snow in 45 hours with the right weather conditions.
“Man-made snow is so much more durable,” she said.
Area resorts are taking full advantage of a significant shift in Michigan’s weather pattern that settled in last weekend just after the Thanksgiving holiday.
“We’ve seen a quick transition,” said Meteorologist Sean Christensen of the National Weather Service office in Gaylord. “It shifted pretty quickly from a cool fall to pretty wintry conditions by late November.”
Through Thursday, the Traverse City area had received nearly 17 inches of snow so far this season, while more than 32 inches has fallen in Gaylord from what Christensen described as some “robust” lake-effect snow conditions. The Petoskey area recorded slightly less than 23 inches of snow as of Thursday.
So far this season, the weather has tracked with the “La Nina” conditions that were identified in several long-range weather model projections this fall that called for lower-than-average temperatures to start this season, and a more-active storm track flow from the southwest. Christensen said that weather pattern is expected to continue through December into early January, which should keep the region cold and snowy into the new year.
“All of the trends point toward plenty of cold air being pulled in from Canada through December and into early January,” Christensen said.
That’s good news for area outdoor winter enthusiasts who saw a slow start to the season last year — which improved significantly as the winter went on — after suffering through an unseasonably mild winter in 2023-24.
“The excitement for winter is really here,” said Lindsey Southwell, director of marketing for Shanty Creek Resorts near Bellaire. Shanty Creek is open this weekend for season pass holders. Like several area resorts, it will be closed next week to continue with snow-making efforts before opening with extended operations next weekend, and night skiing later in the month.
Resort officials are upbeat about the start of the season as the long-range forecast calls for slightly below-average temperatures in the upper 20s and low 30s, with nighttime lows in the teens and low 20s over the next two weeks. Primeau said those are ideal conditions as the snow guns can operate at temperatures of 28 or lower, with 15 degrees the “sweet spot” for cranking out man-made snow.
“We want to have as many slopes as we can opening over the holidays,” she said.
Southwell said the resorts actually prefer colder temperatures to natural snow. A foot of natural snow only creates about an inch of snow base on the runs once compacted by snow groomers.
“For us, the snow-making temperatures are more important than the amount of snow,” she said. “Right now, the snow-making is really going around the clock, and it’s really good snow.”
Both Southwell and Primeau said Old Man Winter’s sudden — but timely — arrival last weekend also spurred a surge of season pass sales and resort reservations that bode well for the upcoming season.
The resorts reported brisk lift ticket sales and lodging reservations during their Black Friday promotions, and lodge reservations are streaming in for the two weeks over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, along with the extended weekends for the Martin Luther King Day holiday on Jan. 19 and Presidents’ Day weekend on Feb. 16.
“The bookings are coming in,” Southwell said. “It’s really filling up.”
Some other area winter destinations aren’t open yet, but they are hopeful that the cold snowy weather will have them operating by the time Christmas break arrives, which for most area schools starts on Dec. 22 and continues through Jan. 2.
Traverse City Parks and Recreation Director Michelle Hunt said the city doesn’t yet have an opening day scheduled for the city’s Hickory Hills Recreation Area, as its snow-making efforts have been hampered by needed equipment repairs.
“We don’t have (an opening day) right now — we’re taking it day-by-day,” Hunt said.
She’s optimistic it will be open before Christmas. The city also plans to have its two outdoor skating rinks at F&M Park and off 14th Street nearly Thirlby Field up and running once those rink areas have a deeper snowpack, she said.
The Mt. Holiday ski area near Acme is planning to open Dec. 20 weather permitting, according to its website. The Timberlee Hills snow tubing facility in Leelanau County’s Elmwood Township is also making snow and hopes to open shortly after Christmas, according to its staff. Updates will be posted on their websites and social media platforms.
The Homestead in Glen Arbor also is taking advantage of the cold temperatures to make snow this week, resort Senior Vice President Adriene Kokowicz said. But the Leelanau County resort won’t open its ski runs until after the Christmas holiday, with its opening day set for Friday, Dec. 26.