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GARDEN CITY, Rich County — There's not enough snow for opening plans, but there's a good start at Beaver Mountain Ski Area.
Workers there are already grooming snow, while some skiers and snowboarders get a head start on the season.
"It's awesome. I've been waiting for this," Jackson Lucas said of the recent powder.
It's hard for some to resist.
"Hopefully it keeps coming," said Will Liddell.
Staff at Beaver Mountain are preparing where they can. It's Utah's only resort that depends completely on naturally-made snow.
"We're glad to see it snowing," said Travis Seeholzer, mountain operations manager at Beaver Mountain. "This forecast looks really good. I think, you know, on the high side, we could end up with close to 3 feet of snow."
"We have been grooming this week and track packing, and that'll help us out immensely if we get more snow," said Seeholzer. "Just having a little base under it before the new snow comes."
Seeholzer said they'll have a better idea this weekend of how close this storm gets them toward opening, but it is just a start.
"This is not unusual," Seeholzer said. "You know, for us, we're really in pretty good shape. And with this storm and hopefully more on the way, you know, we should be in a pretty good place."
It's a business where everyone seems to hold on to the positive vibes, especially after what we saw last season.
"It was one of the best seasons of my life," said Carson Broadbent. "So hopefully we can run that back and have another great year up here."
Seeholzer said they'll need a denser base.
"This is very fluffy snow," he said. "It's great skiing snow, but not so much for a base — but we're anticipating that warming up kind of through this cycle and getting a little denser snow (Saturday) into Sunday."
"Getting a base under it," Seeholzer explained, "the next foot of snow will do a whole lot more for us if we actually have a base already. Because we won't go all the way to the ground with the snowcat."
In the meantime, the resort will be training and preparing about 100 employees this weekend. After that, there will be many more.
