North America's ski season launches at A-Basin

Racers in training are no longer the only skiers on snow. Arapahoe Basin in Colorado was the first ski area in North America to turn on its lifts for the public on Friday, opening for the 2006-07 winter season.

ARAPAHOE BASIN, Colorado — Racers in training are no longer the only skiers on snow. Arapahoe Basin in Colorado was the first ski area in North America to turn on its lifts for the public on Friday, opening for the 2006-07 winter season.
    Sure, it’s Oct. 13 … Friday the 13th. Sure, the sun is beaming and temperatures are bound to reach near 60 degrees at A-Basin’s 10,780-foot base area. Skiers and snowboarders are crunching through brown leaves to get to the snow that leads to the one lift that’s turning. But everyone is decked out in winter gear and ready to ride. About 200 early risers, some of whom had been there for hours, stood in line before the lift started at 9 a.m.
    The first chair went up the hill adorned with a white ribbon. The crowd was asked to take a moment of silence to acknowledge the memory of Brad Odekirk, a Summit County photographer who worked for the local Summit Daily News. He died Aug. 13 after a fall from his third-floor apartment.
    Odekirk was loved at Arapahoe Basin and throughout the Summit County community. He had established a deep respect among those he worked with for capturing the beauty of the Colorado Rockies, the triumph and agony of many local racers and athletes, and for providing a new perspective with every piece of subject matter that fell into the frame of his camera lens.
    "Brad has always been here at key times when we needed him here and he was always here before we asked him to be here," said A-Basin spokeswoman Leigh Hierholzer. "If we had to count on someone to get just the right image or capture just the right mood, he did it. He got great mountain shots, but really great people shots, which showed the character of A-Basin the most … the people. He was a backcountry skier, too, and appreciated that part of this area. He’s a quintessential A-Basin skier. He’s our heart and soul."   
    Following the first chair and a roar of ski-season acknowledgement from the crowd, three riders boarded the second chair and burst through a banner reading "Colorado is open."
    Alpine and telemark skiers joined snowboarders in piling on and off the lift. The snow, with a base of 18 inches, was hard-packed yet soft on top on the single open run — the intermediate High Noon — and in the small terrain park.
    "There’s a lot of hooting and hollering, and if you look over at the maze, it’s full," said Alan Henceroth, A-Basin general manager and COO. "You start with one trail and a little terrain park open and it’s just going to get bigger as time goes on. It’s a great way to get the ball rolling. We have this fun, friendly rivalry with Loveland, and they usually get it [first opening day of the season], but we did it this time." 
    Loveland Ski Area, located just on the other side of Loveland Pass from A-Basin, has claimed North America’s opening ski day every year for the past six. Allowing the Basin to take the proverbial first-place medal this season, Loveland will open on Saturday.
    While others cycled by A-Basin’s renowned base-area parking lot wearing shorts and some sunbathed there with a beer, the crowd at the lift became progressively larger until it was spilling out of the maze. Most opening-day revelers were locals or lived nearby and indicated that the first day of the ski season in October was something readily available. Still, none would miss it for anything.
    "It’s the first chance to get out and ski," Evergreen resident Dave Broudy said. "I’ll probably still ride my bike a lot, but I’ll ski as much as I can."   
    Broudy said he was lucky because he works from home. Others in attendance at the Basin on Friday called in sick or called in honestly.
    "I just called in to work and told them I’d be a few hours late so I could ski," Breckenridge resident Megan Marshall said. “I’ve been ready. It’s another season getting rolling."
    For some, it was like the summer never was.
    "I was snowboarding like a month ago at Mount Hood [Oregon]," Breckenridge’s Peter Johnson said. "It’s nothing too crazy. I came over for an hour or two to take a few runs."   
    So, for most of the ski-town crowd, opening day on Oct. 13 is a simple matter of picking up where they left off.
    "It’s just about getting back into it," Teddy Hoffman said. "It’s just having fun with your friends and shredding."