Feature: About Time
I woke up at 4:00 AM with a giant Yeti full of Starbucks iced coffee so I wouldn’t miss the World Cup opener in Sölden.
The rest of my family was still fast asleep upstairs, and our two old, gassy Labs were thoroughly annoyed that I had woken them up before dawn and was invading their quiet morning time. A 4:00 AM wake-up hits differently when it means ski racing is back.
When the gates dropped on the Rettenbach Glacier in Austria, you saw right away just how small a hundredth of a second is, and how long a career can wait for one.
On Saturday, 32-year-old American Paula Moltzan won the first World Cup race of her career in her 149th start and 11th career podium, taking the women’s giant slalom in 2:14.82. Her margin over second-place finisher Lara Colturi at 2:14.83 was 0.01 seconds, the smallest tick the clock shows. Germany’s Emma Aicher took third, 0.52 seconds back.
What makes it even better is what she had clicked into for the race. This was Moltzan’s first race on Van Deer skis,(I have been crushing on this brand for some time) making her the first woman to race Marcel Hirscher’s brand at the World Cup level after spending the summer helping develop their women’s line from scratch. Sitting fifth after Run 1 while snow fell on the glacier, she put down the fifth-fastest second run and watched the top four fail to catch her. Mikaela Shiffrin led Run 1 before finishing 7th, with AJ Hurt in 13th and Elisabeth Bocock in 14th, giving the U.S. four women inside the top 15.
Then this morning, River Radamus put together the men’s version of a charge. Tied for 15th after a tough first run in Sunday’s men’s GS, Radamus came out with the second-fastest second run of the day at 51.99 and the fastest middle sector on the hill. He sat in the leader’s chair all the way into the final seven racers before finishing 4th overall, 0.82 seconds behind Brazil’s Lucas Pinheiro Braathen at 1:44.72, while Swiss teammates Loïc Meillard and Marco Odermatt took second and third separated by another 0.01 seconds.
Radamus looks every bit like the future of American men’s ski racing, even if he found himself lonely in that second run as the only U.S. man to qualify for the flip-30 today.
Weather: Real Cold Air and Early-November Feet in the West
If you have been following mountain weather forecasters like meteorologist Chris Tomer and Travis at Weather with Travis, the pattern shift I have been waiting on is starting to show up on the morning maps.
I built a dedicated Mountain Weather Desk on Savage Mountain Collective so I always have a persistent, one-click home for Chris Tomer’s latest morning forecast, checked automatically against his feed every 15 minutes. Chris is a great mountain meteorologist and an actual skier, so it is half the fun watching his excitement build when a real storm cycle starts lining up on the charts. I’m not associated or affiliated with him in any way. I just genuinely appreciate what he does for the ski community, which is why both my Mountain Weather Desk and this report share his links in their original format so your views and clicks track straight back to his website and his YouTube channel. At the end of the day, he’s the guy who’ll tell you how your ski day is going to be before it even happens.
After a warm stretch that chewed up the mid-October snow, a real cold front is lining up for Halloween weekend and the first week of November, with Pacific moisture behind it:
Tomer and Travis’s setup: Tomer has been tracking colder northern-branch fronts dropping snow levels across the Northern Rockies, Tetons, Wasatch, and Colorado high country, with 17 inches projected at Big Sky through October 31 and 8 to 10 inches on the upper Wasatch before the next wave. Meanwhile, Travis’s November outlook highlights what happens when one of those cold northern intrusions phases with an active El Niño southern storm track.
Feet on the board for early November: Overnight, the National Weather Service’s gridded snowfall for Alta jumped from 1.8 inches yesterday to about 15 inches for Friday, October 30 through Sunday afternoon, November 1, though Salt Lake forecasters note the trough’s exact split and speed still need better model agreement. Over on OpenSnow, Evan Thayer’s 6 to 10 day window from October 29 to November 2 jumped to 19 inches at Alta and 15 inches at Snowbird, followed by another 18 inches at Alta from November 3 to 7. That puts feet of snow on the table at mid-mountain in the West right through the first week of November. When those Wasatch storm totals start stacking up in Little and Big Cottonwood Canyons, I also have live UDOT road cameras wired up on the Cottonwood Canyon Traffic Desk.
Core season’s almost here. It’s almost time.
Story of the Day: Webcams at Dawn and the Halloween Opening Push
If you were already awake at 4:00 AM watching Sölden, you could flip open a second browser tab or pull up my SMC Ski Area Cameras Directory, where I keep official live webcams and conditions links for major North American resorts in one place, and watch the snowmaking race in Colorado.
Keystone and Arapahoe Basin, along with Loveland up at the pass, have been blowing snow since October 14 whenever the wet-bulb drops. With Loveland Pass dipping into the 20s again tonight with a 23°F forecast low, the Summit County webcams show real whalebacks building on the main ribbons.
A warm stretch this past week kept anyone from spinning a public chair this weekend, which pushes the target onto next weekend and kicks off the 2026 to 2027 U.S. Opening-Day Countdown:
Friday, Oct 30 to Saturday, Oct 31, Halloween Weekend: Arapahoe Basin and Winter Park sit at a projected Oct 30 on OnTheSnow’s tracker. Keystone, which pulled a 90-minute afternoon surprise opening last October to beat A-Basin, pushed its first online lift ticket sales from Oct 24 to Saturday, Oct 31.
Friday, Nov 6: Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, and Loveland in Colorado, plus Utah’s first scheduled opener at Brian Head.
Wednesday, Nov 11: Killington, VT, the projected target as soon as sustained East Coast cold arrives.
Friday, Nov 13 to Sunday, Nov 15: Mammoth Mountain, CA on Nov 13, where the snow guns have already been firing on Broadway the last two nights. Vail and Eldora in Colorado also target Nov 13, followed by Bretton Woods, NH on Nov 14, and Sunday River, ME and Black Mountain, NH projected for Nov 15.
Friday, Nov 20, Core Season Kickoff: Alta, Solitude, and Park City in Utah; Stowe, VT and Sugarloaf, ME in the East; Grand Targhee, WY; and Heavenly, Northstar, and Mt. Rose in Tahoe.
Wednesday, Nov 25 to Friday, Nov 27, Thanksgiving Week: Big Sky, MT and Palisades Tahoe, CA open on Nov 25, followed on Black Friday, Nov 27 by Jackson Hole, WY, Snowbird, UT, and Snowbasin, UT.
Saturday, Dec 5: Deer Valley, UT, where parent company Alterra has locked in its 7-day cap on the full Ikon Pass with zero access on the Ikon Base Pass.
Personal Note: Toggenburg and Black Mountain
Toggenburg Mountain in Fabius, New York, was one of the last hills I skied with my friends years ago before I took my extended intermission from skiing, and I have truthfully lamented ever since that it closed before I got the chance to go back.
Which is why the story Stuart Winchester broke down this week in The Storm Skiing Journal is so damn good. Back in 2021, Toggenburg’s local competitor, Intermountain Management, which owns nearby Song and Labrador, bought the 515-vertical-foot hill and immediately shut it down, slapping a non-compete on the property so nobody else could spin the lifts. After a four-year antitrust fight led by the New York Attorney General’s office, Intermountain was forced to sell Toggenburg to a local Fabius family, Douglas and James Wheeler, whose family owned the land 73 years ago before it first became a ski area in 1953. They are rebuilding the lifts and snowmaking to reopen Toggenburg for the 2027 to 2028 season.
When I heard the news on The Storm Skiing Podcast, I immediately texted my buddy Dan, the last guy I skied Toggenburg with, who hasn’t been on skis in years either, and told him: “Get ready. Next year when they open, we’re going.”
One of the things my wife and I love talking about most is the fight for these small, independent ski areas. Look at what Erik Mogensen is doing at Black Mountain in Jackson, New Hampshire. After stepping in to save the 91-year-old hill from closing in 2024, the Indy Pass boss doubled down this year, buying back 100% of the mountain and moving the world headquarters of Indy Pass and Entabeni Systems from Colorado to New Hampshire so Black Mountain can serve as a live proving ground for keeping independent ski areas alive. One of the places my wife and I are most excited to make it to this season is Black Mountain, both for what they are putting on the mountain and for what they stand for: preserving skiing heritage and the opportunity to carry that heritage into the future.
The reopening of Toggenburg isn’t going to make the top of any international ski list. But for the people in these communities, seeing a resurgence of the hill where they grew up and made their first turns, and getting to share that with the next generation, is every bit as important as first ascents or heli drops, right alongside your first hike up to a new couloir. For a lot of skiers, that 500-foot hill might be the highest level they ever make it to, and I’m just glad the lifts are going to spin again.
Photo of the Day
Posted by the FIS Alpine World Cup account on Saturday morning: “NOT EVEN THE SNOWFALL COULD STOP US! … So many emotions on today’s podium!” Paula Moltzan lifted onto U.S. teammates’ and staff’s shoulders in front of the red Sölden finish board, still in her race bib and holding her new Van Deer skis overhead while heavy October snow falls.
News of the Day
Gear & Backcountry Deal Highlight: 60% Off onX Backcountry
onX Backcountry is 60% off right now, and it is as good in-bounds as it is out the gates: Right now onX Backcountry is running 60% off annual memberships with code
snowbrains60, dropping Premium from $30/year to $12/year and Elite from $100/year to $40/year. Even if you aren’t skinning up a backcountry bowl every weekend, the 3D renderings cover the ski resorts themselves alongside the backcountry. It is a unique tool for exploring a mountain in 3D before you arrive in the parking lot and remembering the mountain after you’ve left, while spotting those little treasures and glades that sit just off the piste. And when you do step out the gates, you get slope-angle shading, ATES avalanche ratings, SNOTEL data, and Beacon Guidebooks routes built right in. (I took advantage of this deal)HEAD Supershape turns 20: HEAD is celebrating 20 years of the Supershape line, and Ski Racing is running a limited-edition ski giveaway.
Storm Watch
Utah: A 40% chance of light afternoon snow showers today at Alta at 38°F and Snowbird Hidden Peak at 36°F with little or no accumulation, followed by a shallow cold front Monday night with gusts to 36 mph and under an inch of snow down to 6,000 to 7,000 feet before the Pacific Northwest trough arrives Friday.
Colorado & California: Snow showers are likely tonight at Loveland Pass with under an inch expected and a low near 23°F. In the Sierra, Mammoth, Kirkwood, Heavenly, and other California ski areas saw up to 2 inches in 24 hours, and Mammoth has fired up its snow guns the last two nights on Broadway ahead of its Nov 13 opener.
East Coast: Still too warm for snowmaking in the East. Stowe is sunny and 62°F today and 58°F Monday before dipping to 30°F Monday night, though Massachusetts’ Ski Ward spun its carpet on a summer-made snow patch to claim the first outdoor turns in New England.
Resort & Racing Notes
Fly-in free ski day in Wyoming: Travelers flying into Jackson Hole this winter can ski a free day at Jackson Hole or Snow King, plus Grand Targhee over the pass, with a same-day boarding pass.
Valérie Grenier: Canada’s Grenier underwent ACL reconstruction and medial meniscus repair after a Sölden training crash and gave no return timeline.
Next on the World Cup: Three weeks off before slalom opens at Levi, Finland on Nov 14 and 15.
Podcasts and Livestreams
You can tell the season is here when the audio and YouTube feeds flip back to winter. The preseason podcast rotation is rolling again, with The Storm Skiing Podcast digging into Toggenburg and Powder Mountain and Blister’s Gear:30 breaking down 2026 to 2027 gear trends. Meanwhile, the regular ski livestreams and vlogs are kicking back up from guys like Lucas Catania and Johnathan Buckhouse. If your own social feeds still need a preseason tune-up, I also put together over 100 vetted ski, weather, and mountain accounts in the SMC Medicine Cabinet: Prescriptions for Your Sick Algorithm.
I don’t have a single trip locked on the calendar yet, and it’s still too warm back East for the resorts to turn the guns on. But the first real lift openings in Colorado are probably less than a week away, and the November 20 core-season openers in Utah at Alta and Solitude, along with Park City, are only three Fridays after that.
Very excited. Gear ready.
Explore the live tools on Savage Mountain Collective: Chris Tomer Mountain Weather Desk · North American Ski Cameras Directory · Cottonwood Canyon Traffic Cams · The Medicine Cabinet.
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Photo credits and sources: Paula Moltzan hero photo by GEPA pictures / Harald Steiner via Ski Racing Media; River Radamus photo by GEPA pictures / Wolfgang Grebien via Ski Racing Media; Arapahoe Basin snowmaking photo by Arapahoe Basin Ski Area via Summit Daily; Toggenburg trail map via The Storm Skiing Journal; Erik Mogensen photo by Dan Tuohy / NHPR; Paula Moltzan podium photo by Agence Zoom via FIS Alpine World Cup on X. Reporting and data via FIS, Ski Racing Media, U.S. Ski & Snowboard, Chris Tomer, Weather with Travis, NWS Salt Lake City, OpenSnow, Ski Utah, OnTheSnow, Summit Daily, Rocky Mountain PBS, The Storm Skiing Journal, SAM Magazine, NHPR, SnowBrains, and Powder Magazine.
