Durango Mountain Resort is deploying 16 new snow guns this month in a bid to ensure better early-season conditions for skiers on the mountain’s heavily trafficked front side.
After a dry beginning to the 2012-13 season, Purgatory wanted to open the front side’s “six-pack” – the resort’s highest-capacity and fastest chairlift – earlier in the season.
“We’ll be able to deliver a much better early-season product and a better experience for skiers,” said Kim Oyler, the resort’s spokeswoman.
The new array of snowmaking equipment includes a “state-of-the-art” high-output fan gun, Oyler said. DMR began making snow on the mountain Nov. 1.
The resort’s investment aims to provide more consistent snow cover for skiers and snowboarders regardless of natural snowfall.
“By purchasing this equipment, it makes us more efficient so we don’t have to be as reliant on Mother Nature,” Oyler said. “We still need her to cooperate with colder (temperatures), but we can provide a better product early in the season whether or not we have natural snow.”
Durango Mountain Resort is scheduled to open Nov. 29, the day after Thanksgiving.
DMR is offering two- and three-day punch cards targeted at locals for whom a season pass isn’t a good fit.
The two-day passes cost $79 and the three-day tickets are $149. The two-day pass must be used between Jan. 4 and Feb. 14, with “blackout dates” Jan. 18-19. The three-day pass is more flexible, valid all season except for blackout dates of Dec. 25-Jan. 3, Jan. 18-19, Feb. 15-16 and March 10-14.
The tickets are available beginning Friday at DMR’s office in Bodo Industrial Park.
“We wanted to offer some other discounted lift tickets, especially to our locals here in Durango,” Oyler said. “Maybe a season pass doesn’t make sense for them, but we wanted to offer them an opportunity to get up to the mountain.”
Purgatory also will offer “Mature Mondays” for skiers age 65 and older. Lift tickets on Mondays will be $35 for senior skiers. “Mature Mondays” come a year after the resort angered some seniors by reducing their discounts.
Thursdays bring a discount for all skiers and snowboarders – only $45, meant to encourage more visitors on Thursdays.
Durango Mountain Resort will continue the popular Locals Benefit Days, with $40 lift tickets for adults, $32 for young adults and seniors and $25 for children and “super seniors.” The first such day is Dec. 15.
Regular-price lift tickets are $77 for adults. Season passes, discounted earlier in the year, now are $929. A variety of discounts apply for seniors, college students and children.
For backcountry skiers, San Juan Ski Co. is under new ownership and has a new name, San Juan Untracked. The cat skiing operation offers access to 35,000 acres with daily guided trips leaving from the resort’s base area.
WOLF CREEK SKI AREA
Wolf Creek Ski Area east of Pagosa Springs has been open on weekends for three weeks. The ski area now is open every day.
New this year is a detachable four-person “quad” chair. The Treasure Stoke lift replaces Treasure, a first-generation triple chair that proved cumbersome for skiers.
“It would stop and start a lot because people would have trouble loading and unloading,” said Rosanne Pitcher, vice president of marketing and sales. “It was just time to replace it.”
The lift, which cost about $5 million, serves intermediate and expert terrain.
Unlike DMR, Wolf Creek has only four snow guns, which it uses to cover beginner terrain at the base area. Wolf Creek tends to receive among the most snow of any Colorado ski area.
“We really depend on the natural snow, although the man-made snow helps us out on the beginner terrain there,” Pitcher said.
Wolf Creek had received four feet of snow for the season by Thursday.
Wolf Creek also improved the ticket office with new windows for customers.
Adult lift tickets cost $58. Local days cost $38, and there are three this month – Wednesday, Nov. 20 and Nov. 24. Season passes now are $786.
SILVERTON MOUNTAIN
The expert ski area outside of Silverton is offering overnight backcountry heli-skiing trips for the first time, becoming the only ski area in Colorado to do so.
Similar trips are popular in Canada, said Silverton Mountain manager Aaron Brill.
The helicopter will take skiers and a guide to a remote basin near Animas Forks. Skiers then will ski down untouched snow to a camp.
“There’s usually no other users out there because it’s so remote,” said Brill.
The trips cost $429 per person per day with a minimum of four people.
Silverton Mountain is scheduled to open Dec. 21. The ski area has found skiers tend to show up in small numbers before then, Brill said.
“If the early-season snow trend is spectacular, then we might open earlier,” he said.
cslothower@durangoherald.com