MARYSVILLE — With the holiday season comes snow, and with snow comes skiing.
And at Great Divide Ski Area, they’ve been running the snow machines to prepare for the ski season.
While last year’s season started a bit early, this year’s official season will begin a bit later than usual.
Great Divide held a surprise soft-opening on Nov. 21, honoring their slogan as the first annual open chairlift in Montana.
Since then, the mountain has received a couple of inches of fresh snow along with many more from the multiple snow machines on the hill.
The resort plans to have more regular hours starting in December when they will be open every weekend on Friday from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. for night skiing and 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the weekends, until winter break when they ramp up hours of operation.
But there is another opportunity to ski this weekend.
“So, this weekend is going to be a very simple trail. We have about 3,000 feet of trail starting at the top of our Good Luck lift, coming down the old Good Luck trail onto Broadway," said general manager Travis Crawford.
"The trail is around 100 feet wide. We're going to set up several terrain park features and then we'll have our backyard beginner area. But that's pretty much it. It's back to simple skiing for this weekend,” Crawford told MTN News.
Crawford says that as soon as the weather gets colder and there is more snow they’ll be able to open up more runs and lifts.
There’s also been a lot of renovations and updates from last season. Timber work, continued chairlift expansion, renovations on their new lodge, and improvements on their snow-making equipment will help make Great Divide even better for years to come.
Great Divide will open at 9:30 a.m. on Friday for skiing.
