Royal Mountain Conditions

[Jim]

Yes, 1-4 PM. Ticket sales started at either 12:30 or 12:45, don't remember for sure.

 

[Jim]

We had our ski school kickoff meeting this morning before Royal's annual preseason open house. A few things I learned:

• The target for opening day is December 6 but it's obviously too soon to say if that will work out.
• Jake mentioned there are some snowmaking enhancements, and the goal is to have 75% of snowmaking terrain open within a couple weeks of good weather.
• There are new structures for the lift operators at the top of both main lifts. I don't know if they're now right next to the lifts like on the practice slope but that would make sense to me.
• Some preventative maintenance and modernization was completed on the Hadley lift.
• Summer trail work focused on safety improvements at intersections, mainly to improve visibility.
• A few other specifics were mentioned by our ski school directors:
  • Improvements to the entrance to Glasgow glades, which are off to the skiers left at the top of the Knight. It's always been a narrow steep uphill.
  • A little opening up of the popular wooded cut through from the top of the Kennedy lift to the top of the Prince.
  • And the most interesting one to me: a narrow, winding, and steep new cut through the woods to the skiers left of Lower Red Carpet. Our ski school directors think it's going to be excellent and a real challenge.

Personally, I am hoping for a more or less normal ski season after my Big Snow knee injury in August. I'll post an update on that in an appropriate thread.

 

[mel]

Royal has been picking up plenty of Natural Snow! About 10" the last few days!! And the guns blasting away-- was 15F this Am- perfect snow making weather!

 

[Jim]

Royal is opening Sunday. No official word yet on trails. I would guess Royal, Queen, Lift Access, Lodge Run, and the Beginner Slope. With this run of natural snow and great snowmaking weather, maybe we'll get Prince too.

 

[mel]

Today's the day! Royal opens for the 2025-26 season... guns have been on as often as temps allow.. will be good to back!
We’ll be open from 9 AM–4 PM.

Sunday pricing only

Adult – $50

Junior – $35

Trails open: Royal, Queen, Bunny Hill (chairlift only), Lodge Run, Lift Access, Board Around
Plus — the lodge is open for food & drinks, and The Velcro will be serving as well… rumor has it it’s the bartender’s birthday!

Come celebrate Opening Day with us!

 

[Robert]

Conditions are good today. Packed powder groomers feel good to get the legs back They basically have three different ways down. A green, a blue and a black. Jake and Brooke were both surprised with the amount of people they had today. It was a great opening.

 

[Jim]

Yes, a very nice opening day! I was also surprised by how busy it was. With the Sunday opening, everyone who wanted one day this weekend was squeezed into today. I was especially surprised by the number of day tickets, not just the passholders. I only took a few runs off the top since I spent some time on the practice slope to test out the new knee brace (so far so good) then had a couple hours of instructor training over there. Both Queen and Royal were still nice when I went up for my runs on the main mountain after 12:30.

A few of us talked with Jake about plans to expand open terrain. He said Prince is over 90% ready, Knight is about half way and both should be open with no problems next weekend, maybe Captain Jack's as well. But that will do it for the available water, so the ponds need to fill back up before they can go to work on Challenge. I am hopeful that they'll put some of the remaining water into getting the Bunny Runner up before we start getting too many lessons.

 

[Jim]

From Royal's social media, looks like the water in the pond might be going further than they thought. And as an instructor I'm happy to see the Bunny Runner will be ready to go too.

Snowmaking Update

Snowmaking is officially complete on the Upper Knight and Captain Jack! The entire Knight will be open this weekend.

We’ve now moved our snowmaking efforts over to The Challenge and are pushing hard to have it open as well.

This weekend we’ll have 3 chairlifts and the Bunny Runner spinning. It’s shaping up to be an awesome few days on the mountain!

 

[mel]

From Royal's social media, looks like the water in the pond might be going further than they thought. And as an instructor I'm happy to see the Bunny Runner will be ready to go too.

and we got 10" yesterday on top of at least a foot already in Dec. Skiing will be EXCELLENT!

 

[Jim]

It felt like mid-winter today at Royal with conditions I'd happily take any day of the season. I stuck to the main trails since I was mostly in a lesson and I'm building slowly and cautiously as I get used to skiing with the knee brace. Great conditions where I did get to go on Knight, Captain Jack's, Prince, Queen, and Royal. Challenge was open and groomed out but kind of thin and I decided to pass on it today. The woods were "Enter at your own risk" and were getting a good amount of traffic. Upper Red Carpet had a good amount of traffic even though it wasn't open.

I should be able to get back up for some runs tomorrow.