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Juneau is finally seeing some snow this week after a winter that hasn’t gotten nearly as much as usual.
Up at Eaglecrest Ski Area Thursday morning, Holly Harris was glad to squeeze some runs in on a long-awaited heavy snow day.
“It’s filling in fresh so you get fresh tracks every run wherever you go,” she said.
She moved to Juneau from New Zealand in November, and she said she couldn’t pass up coming out today, even if for just a bit.
“I just took a couple of laps,” Harris said. “I’m meant to go to work now.”
But she said she’ll be back bright and early Friday.
The ski area opened the Ptarmigan lift Wednesday, which takes skiers and boarders up to the top of the mountain. There they can access greens, blues and even some double black runs.
Due to a lack of snow so far this winter, Eaglecrest Ski Area has only been able to open one lift until this week — the short Porcupine chairlift that only services the bunny hill.
A recent city meeting outlined some big costs Eaglecrest is facing in the coming years, so selling some lift tickets this week is a welcome relief for the city-run ski area.
Jeff Garmon is a forescastor with the National Weather Service Juneau office. He said January 2025 has seen about a foot less snow than the average Juneau January, according to measurements at the Juneau International Airport.
“And there’s some spots, like Eaglecrest, that maybe significantly more below normal, because they’ve had a lot more rain on the mountain than we’ve had,” Garmon said.
This week’s snowfall will help close the gap, he said. Then, this weekend is slated to be sunny and cold. It should make for some good views from the slopes.
Today, the snowfall meant there wasn’t a lot of visibility on the mountain. But, that didn’t stop Nelson Merrell.
“It is awesome, everyone should come up and enjoy the snow,” he said.
Merrell wasn’t dwelling too much on the late season opening.
“Today is great,” he said with a laugh.