SNOWBASIN -- You could almost call it "Black Thursday."
Snowboarders and skiers started showing up as early as 7 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day at Snowbasin, which was able to keep with its tradition of opening for the season on the holiday thanks to a frenzy of snowmaking over the last several days.
"It's been a long summer, and I'm ready to ride," said snowboarder Brady Nielsen, of Layton, a three-year season pass holder who had the honor of being first on the lift.
Snowbasin opened with a 2.5-mile run from top to bottom accessed by the Needles Express Gondola, as well as a small terrain park near the base.
The resort, which has received a below-average 32 inches of natural snowfall to date this season, generated an additional 20 inches of man-made snow that made Thursday's opening possible.
Jodi Holmgren, Snowbasin's marketing director, said the resort set an opening-day record high for the number of skiers and boarders that rode Needles Express. About 900 showed up Thursday.
Aside from a shortage of the natural snowfall needed to allow the resort to open all of its runs, Holmgren said the season looks promising despite a persistently weak economy.
"Pass sales are significantly up over last year, and we are off to a great start," she said.
Ski Utah, the promotional group responsible for marketing Utah's 13 resorts, predicted earlier this month that visits to Utah resorts will be up about 3 percent this season compared with last season. That would push total visitation back above 4 million skier days, and result in the state's fourth-busiest season on record.
The Top of Utah ski season officially kicked off last week with the opening of the smaller, but still popular Wolf Creek Utah. Powder Mountain, the only Utah ski area that doesn't use snowmaking equipment, is still waiting for Mother Nature to blanket its slopes more thoroughly.
Snowbasin is expecting a big boost in terms of exposure in mid-January when it plays host to the Winter Dew Tour, an internationally televised competition featuring some of the biggest names in skiing and boarding.
The resort will build some massive features -- including an 18-foot-deep "superpipe" halfpipe that will take 30 million gallons of water to create -- for the three-day event, which is expected to draw at least 20,000 visitors.
Holmgren said the Dew Tour will be the biggest event at Snowbasin since the 2002 Winter Olympics, when the resort hosted the men's and women's downhill, combined and Super-G ski races.
Widespread media coverage of the competition will help Snowbasin attract more out-of-state and overseas visitors, she said.
Thursday's opening, however, was more about the locals, who have been clamoring for ski season to arrive since the first dusting of mountaintop snow in October.
Jared Saunders drove up from Ogden Thursday to "get my fix."
"It will be a lot better when the whole mountain is open, but I'll take what I can get. I couldn't wait any longer."
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