Great ski weather, great deals
As nearby slopes get snow, winter sports enthusiasts can sell old gear and get new items at Ski Swap event
With the first day of a promising ski season less than a week away, the Santa Fe Ski Team hopes to help local snow sports enthusiasts get a good deal by gearing up at its annual Ski Swap — an opportunity to buy and sell used equipment.
The swap opens Friday evening at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center and continues Saturday.
Skiers and snowboarders can offer up their old gear for a fee of $2 per pair or item. Ski Santa Fe and other winter sports dealers also will have booths at the event, offering specials on goods and season passes.
Ski Santa Fe announced Thursday that almost all of its lifts will start running Thanksgiving Day, and about 65 percent of the slopes will be open, including parts of the upper mountain.
The only lift that won’t be operating on opening day is the Chipmunk Corner beginner lift, the news release said.
“There’s a lot of enthusiasm this year,” said Candy DeJoia, a spokeswoman for the ski area. “We’re looking forward to a good year.”
New Mexico meteorologists have been predicting for weeks that an El Niño weather pattern would bring an increase in snowfall to Northern New Mexico this season, compared to the warm, dry winter last year that left little snowpack on the slopes.
DeJoia said the ski basin had received 35 inches of snow by Thursday, compared to a total of 54 inches in the entire 2017-18 ski season, from December to March.
The base depth on the mountain was 20 inches Thursday, compared to about 12 inches throughout 2017-18 — most of that man-made snow.
Last year, light snows delayed Ski Santa Fe’s opening day until Dec. 9, and runs on the upper mountain couldn’t open until late in the season.
Spokeswoman Susan Fox said upper-mountain trails will be open Thanksgiving Day, but Ski Santa Fe won’t announce which ones until a couple of days before the season’s launch.
About 1,000 people had purchased an early season pass by the closing date Monday, DeJoia said, adding that snowfalls earlier this month, including a winter blast Sunday night and Monday that dumped more than a foot of snow on the mountain, have helped build enthusiasm for the season.
“There’s a lot of good excitement around it,” Fox said.