BOISE, Idaho — Boise had its first measurable snowfall of the season on Friday, but just north of town, Bogus Basin was blanketed with snow.
The nonprofit ski area got eight inches of snow at its base. With all the snow, Bogus Basin says its Nov. 24 opening date is looking more and more promising.
"If you’re in this business and you’re not excited when this happens, you got a problem," Brad Wilson, the general manager of Bogus Basin said. "So it’s super great to see this. You know, you never can tell. We’re like farmers, we wait for the weather to change and right now we’re getting a bumper crop so we’re pretty stoked.”
With the amount of snow this early in the season, the resort has gotten a mountain-sized jump on preparations. Temperatures on Bogus Basin were in the high 20s Friday.
"So that’s kind of a wet snow, but that’s exactly what we want early season, it makes for a really solid base," Wilson said. "Once you get into the season you want it to be cold and you want nice fluffy snow for skiing. But early season, the wetter the better. You want that really thick base that sticks around for a while and will be with us through the season.”
In addition to natural snow, the colder temperatures have allowed the resort to run snow guns for nearly 48 straight hours. They expect to continue making snow for multiple days next week.
The machine-made snow allows Bogus Basin to ensure they can welcome shredders by Thanksgiving. This will be the resort's third year opening on Turkey Day.
“Traditionally - meaning the last three or four years - we have opened a small snowboard/ski train park, we call it the hike park," Wilson said. "We’ll likely have that open before Thanksgiving. And that will give people an opportunity to hike up and hit some of the terrain features that we have. And just get everybody really excited about the ski season and a chance to come up and get their ski and snowboard legs under them before we open the lifts."
The resort is also touting roughly $5 million in improvements for its 80th season. The range of projects included paving the rest of the parking lot, new runs, RFID technology, expanded beginner terrain, and increased night lighting.
“So immediately when you come up on Thanksgiving or before, you'll notice how much more parking we have," Wilson said. "The whole parking lot was paved now, so it’s smooth and you can get up to the Pioneer Road on a perfectly smooth road as well. So that’s gonna be awesome."
"We’ll have new trails open, maybe not when you first get here, but soon after opening, we’ll get some of our trails open. Independence and Blackbird will be opening pretty early in the season and then you’ll notice if it’s busy that chair 2 has much more capacity because we added chairs to that lift gives us 30% more uphill capacity, and that’ll be quite noticeable for the folks who ski here a lot. So shorter lift lines, more trails, more parking, it’s going to be a fantastic season.
Bogus Basin has sold out of its Twilight Passes for the season. Anytime Passes are getting close to selling out. Wilson says the weather is a huge motivator for selling season passes.
Updates on conditions, openings, and tickets can be found on the Bogus Basin website.
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