If you're already looking ahead to skiing over the holidays, you're not alone.
Christmas and New Year’s week is one of the most popular times of year to hit the slopes-and one of the most unpredictable when it comes to snow conditions.
Booking a ski trip early in the ski season can pose a bit of a risk, but many people find it most easy to get away during the Christmas - New Year's holidays.
Kids are out of school and many companies have a break between December 25 and January 2.
People don't ski winter break because it's a good time to ski-it sometimes isn't-they ski winter break because it's when they can ski.
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Many of us find ourselves in this exact situation.
Here's a guide to guide skiers planning trips during the early winter and around the Christmas and New Year's holidays.
Here are some of the best ski resorts that are typically open and offer excellent conditions on Christmas Day:
Just as important, if not more so, than the preceding factor, is the likelihood of the prolonged drought at a given ski resort.
Some resorts like those in California have large annual average snowfalls but are also more likely to go a month with less than 30 inches of snow compared with a ski resort in the Rockies.
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These resorts have higher standard deviations of snowfall and therefore are more likely to have extremely dry early seasons.
Here's a look at some of the top resorts and what you can expect:
The amount of terrain as a percentage of a resort's total that a ski resort averages having open on December 25.
Most ski resorts only have a fraction of the amount of terrain open this year compared to past Christmas seasons.
High-tech snowguns have helped some resorts capitalize on the snowmaking windows for so far this season.
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With a snowstorm forecast to hit Colorado from Thursday through Sunday, ski areas are hoping for natural snow to supplement snowmaking efforts.
“I think it’s just important for everyone to remember to have fun with what we got,” A-Basin Communications Manager Shayna Silverman said.
“We’re all in this together and have to make the most of it.
Top Ski Resorts Open on Christmas Day
Alta, Utah
Alta has the best snow of any spot that's tracked in North America, and its conditions during the early season are no exception.
For skiers hoping to sneak out at the beginning of the season and find a ski resort that's draped head to toe in a deep façade of snow, Alta is always an excellent bet.
Its advantageous position in Little Cottonwood Canyon makes it a funnel for snow, turning small early-season weather disturbances into major snow events that leave behind two feet of powder on Alta's iconic slopes.
On Christmas day, an average of 96% of Alta's terrain is open for business.
Just a scant 5% of winters see Alta with less than half of its terrain open on Dec. 25.
For skiers seeking early season deliverance, with a good shot at big-time snow, the opportunities at Alta are nearly unmatched.
Steamboat, Colorado
Steamboat excels at many things, but its snow coverage in the early season of the Rocky Mountain winter is nearly without peer.
Anybody who has looked at a map of Colorado knows that Steamboat sits off by itself, away from the rest of Colorado's destination resorts.
It's this unique spot on Colorado's high plateau that is a veritable vacuum cleaner for early-season storms that come across the continent.
Steamboat averages 93% open on Dec. 25, and only 5% of its winters see conditions where less than half of the mountain is open.
Steamboat is further helped by the shape of its mountain, which is chock full of mellow slopes that hold snow rather than sloughing it off like the steeper terrain of Snowbird or Jackson Hole.
Steamboat is as close to a sure thing at Christmas and New Year's as a skier can have, and its lodging base is deep and comprehensive, making it an ideal destination for holiday ski trips.
Grand Targhee, Wyoming
For snow seekers, Grand Targhee is the best bet in North America for the holidays.
It has a perfect record on having all of its lifts and terrain open on Dec. 25.
Targhee's slopes sit almost as high as Jackson Hole's, with top elevation of 10,000.
But whereas Jackson Hole is on the lee site of the mountains (it catches storms after they have hit western-facing slopes), Targhee sits in storms' crosshairs.
This is why it receives even more snow than the copious amounts that grace Jackson every winter.
In addition, Targhee's terrain isn't particularly steep or rocky outside of a few small nooks.
This means it requires less snow to get acreage open in the early season at Targhee.
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Our No. 1 ranked ski resort overall is also a stalwart in the early season.
This is when Jackson Hole excels, in fact.
Its snow conditions peak early, compared with most ski resorts in the North American west-see Jackson's snow graph below.
The first thing Jackson Hole has going for it during the early season is that, quite simply, it receives a lot of snow.
In the early part of the season, when its colder and darker, Jackson preserves this snow fairly well, and its northerly latitude keeps the sun at a low angle, minimizing its effect.
This is why Jackson Hole averages an 82% open rate for its terrain on Dec. 25, a exceptionally high number given the overall steepness of Jackson's slopes-this is a place that requires more snow for good coverage than any other major ski resort in North America.
Only 15% of Jackson's winters pass with less than half the ski resort's terrain open on Christmas.
Brighton, Utah
Positioned at the end of Big Cottonwood Canyon, Brighton harvests snow at a clip that only other Utah resorts can match.
Its terrain is mellower than that at next-door neighbor Solitude, which helps it get terrain open more quickly.
Brighton averages having 90% of its terrain open on Dec. 25.
It's less than half open at Christmas in only 10% of winters.
Solitude, Utah
As Brighton's neighbor in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Solitude enjoys the Utah Wasatch snow effect, wherein small storms turn into big ones thanks to the snow trap formed by the west-facing canyon.
The west side of the Wasatch is one of the most dependable stretches of mountains for snowfall in the world, and Solitude gets its fair share.
The ski resort averages having 85% of its terrain open by the holidays.