Alaska News

Hilltop ski area opens on Friday

Hilltop Ski Area opens for the season at 3 p.m. Friday with at least one run available.

The Caribou run will be open and King Salmon and Turkey Trench might be too if enough snow falls or can be made to ensure coverage, general manager Rick Cramer said Wednesday.

"The snow gods smiled on a us a little bit," Cramer said of the weekend's snowfall, which dropped 8 to 12 inches of snow on the Hillside ski area. "We have light coverage in some areas but we should be able to have a couple runs going."

The halfpipe park will not open for another couple of weeks, he said.

"It takes a lot of snow-making. We might not get to that till the first week of December, maybe the second week, depending on how cold it is," Cramer said.

Temperatures must be 25 or lower for snow-making equipment to work, and the main hill gets priority when it comes to where to make snow.

The Friday opening kicks off daily operations. Hilltop will be open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturdays, 9 a.m to 5 p.m. Sundays and 3-9 p.m. weekdays. The area will be open Thanksgiving Day, Cramer said.

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Lift tickets range from $26 to $32. For daily condition reports, call 346-2167.

Anchorage Daily News / adn.com

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