Pass openings

Perhaps this is a project for Amar, but I'm curious about the ski area openings each year. It would be really cool to see them in graph form. I know we've had openings late in the year like this in the past, but I wonder if there is more of a trend to later and later openings.

Funny you should ask Jason...i just looked this up this morning.

The latest close for Chinook looks to have been December 18th 1974, Hwy 20 January 3rd 1990.  Hope we don't beat those records any time soon.

here is the table, who has the time to make it a graph....

www.wsdot.wa.gov/winter/passdates.htm

I would be very interested to see the ski area opeinings on a graph as well, but it's important to remember that there are yearly differences in the "quality" of the opening. Some years it's everybody on 1 run, some years it's everything open/choking on face shots.

But, it certainly would provide a baseline.

I also wonder if the trend towards almost everybody having a season pass could lead to slightly later openings if they don't stand to make as much $$$ by opening earlier if the majority of the skiers & riders aren't buying tickets. Of course they still need to be open by Christmas, but maybe it plays a role.

Don't forget '76-'77, when none of the passes closed for the winter!!!!

the winter of '04-'05 was an anomoly for being such a low-snow year, but haven't we also had some historically early openings over the past couple years? Seems like it was just a year or two ago that Baker was talking about its earliest opening ever...

Checking my records I've been keeping at my website (I only keep records for Snoqualmie) their past opening days for the past 10 years are;

1998-01 = First week of Dec
2002 = Dec 28
2003 = Nov 28
2004 = Dec 14 then closed and re-opened April 1
2005 = Nov 21
2006 = Nov 18
2007 = Dec 16

FWIW......