Snow Couldn't Come At A Better Time For Mountain Towns, Resorts
GEORGETOWN, Colo. (CBS4) - Georgetown was hurting due to the lack of snow. Just a month ago the mountain town brought snow guns into town for the holiday season.
Like most mountain towns, snow is important for the tourist town's economy. Bringing in the snow guns ended up being a disaster because the guns created more ice and headaches than economic benefit. Now they finally have the real thing, and it couldn't come at a better time -- the last weekend before Christmas.
Skiers finally got what they wanted -- a ski day worth the price of a lift ticket. The storm brought 16 inches of new snow in some parts. It's been snowing in some areas since Sunday.
"We were expecting only a couple inches of snow, and then we got this; three, four, five inches every day," a skier said.
Keystone has opened a lot more available terrain and expects to be half open by the weekend with still a long way to go.
"Two weeks ago when we came up the only snow you could see was on probably about five or six trails, and now the whole mountain is covered with snow," a skier said.
"Everyone expects it to be winter up here," a Keystone official said.
It's cliché, but true. Snow is the white gold, money maker in the mountains. The season was off to a dreadful start. The storm is needed relief on the last days before Christmas.
"It really helps it, people get more festive and get out more and get up to the ski slopes and then stop and come to the stores," the Keystone official said. "It just feels more like winter, more like Christmas."
While most areas in the mountains are reporting less snow than normal, there is at least one bright spot. Vail Resorts says at Beaver Creek they have 11 inches more snow than they would normally have at this time of year."
