Pikes Peak Region Trail Finder

By Lauren Glendenning, Vail Daily

VAIL, Colorado — With just days before Vail Mountain opens for the 2011-12 ski season, mountain operations crews are working around the clock to get the snow ready for action.

There's a lot more work that goes into opening a ski resort than some may think. While natural snow has helped Vail Mountain over the past couple of weeks, that snow has to be tended to in order to make conditions right for Opening Day.

(Vail is scheduled to open Friday. Click here to see when your favorite Colorado ski area is opening!)

Thankfully for the operations crews, early-season conditions this year have been phenomenal.

“The temperatures have been just unbelievably favorable for making some snow,” Vail Ski Patrol Director Julie Rust said. “We don't know (exactly) what we'll have available to open, but boy, we're going gangbusters.”

Rust's crew has been in training leading up to Opening Day. They're doing everything from medical training to lift evacuation to guest-services training, she said.

They'll start deciding where to put up closures soon and will make sure preparations in all areas of the mountain are complete.

“You can't just pop the place open because it looks good,” Rust said. “There's coordination between so many departments and preparations in all sorts of areas.”

Paul Fillion, senior director of mountain operations, said there have been close to 100 snow guns running at a time in the past few days. The guns are working to cover the Born Free run, as well as the egress routes, or cat tracks, off the hill.

“We're really trying to connect all the dots,” Fillion said.

Read more about the prep work under way at Vail and what you can expect on opening day.