HARBOR SPRINGS -- With ski season upon us, area ski resorts opens the doors this weekend to a full crowd of people ready to hit the slopes.
Nub's Nob near Harbor Springs opened for business this weekend, and the general manager says it didn't take long for the hills to become full of skiers and snow boarders.
Last year, they opened the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but with the favorable weather, ski staff say they couldn't ask for a better season opener.
"The good news is this year it came early. We were ready, we jumped on it and we're ready to go," says Nub's Nob general manager Jim Bartlett.
Bartlett says the early winter snow provides a perfect opener to the winter sport.
"Opening day excitement is just like any other opening day I think in any other big sporting event and people are excited to get on the snow. This year was really unique because a week ago where we're standing it was brown," says Bartlett.
And with the help of snow guns that were turned on last weekend, white slopes are the main attraction.
"They're really good and powdery," says skier Milo Marlotte.
"Yeah, it's really good snow. We come out here basically everyday," says skier Keith Fitzpatrick.
"The snows really good today," says skier Chris Kowalski.
And it's not just local skiers that are making their way to Nub's Nob...
"When you get open a week early, people downstate know we've got snow up here in northern Michigan...looking at the license plates in the parking lot, it's pretty much locals right now, although there's certainly a few who got in the car and made the trek to come up once they found out we were open," says Bartlett.
As far as a skiing forecast for the remainder of the year...Bartlett says that's
un-predictable. But he does say that being prepared for when mother nature does strike is one way to keep the ski hills full.
"All we know how to do here at Nub's is to be ready when it gets cold to make the best snow we can as fast as we can, and that's what we strive for every year on that," says Bartlett.
Nub's Nob will be open again next weekend....and they'll officially open every day starting the first weekend of December.
