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The Thanksgiving break not only is Turkey Time, but it's also when many resorts all across the West to crank up the lifts, drop the ropes and welcome a new ski and snowboard season.

The first major snowfall in the southern tier of the Rocky Mountains brings welcome coverage to resorts in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and southern Colorado – just in time.

Heavy, accumulating snow will reach all the way south to San Diego’s mountains and dump up to two feet of snow in Arizona and the Four Corners.

The flush of double-digit preseason snowfall in the Colorado Rockies and cold temps have propelled early openings all around – in particular, some of the largest resorts in the state.

Steamboat Resort will open on the earliest date in its history. 

The owners of Purgatory, Arizona Snowbowl and four day-trip resorts in the Southwest have purchased Brian Head Resort in southern Utah.

Patience will pay off in the East when multiple shots of cold and snow bring a much-awaited weather pattern for area ski resorts.

A combination of persistent cold temps and better-than-expected early snowfall has prompted Eldora Mountain and Monarch Mountain to crank up the lifts several weeks before their announced opening date.

Because of a huge snowmaking project begun this summer, Vail Mountain managers are more confident than ever that the Nov. 15 opening day will have the best skiing and riding conditions ever on Colorado's largest mountain.

With high-country temperatures prime for snowmaking help from Mother Nature, the West's ski and snowboard season is upon, as a quartet of ski and snowboard resorts are making noise about opening soon.

With at least three resorts open for skiing and riding this weekend, Colorado is poised for a foot of snow from multiple weather systems.

A pair of Colorado mountains are open for the season – and another two will likely open by the end of the month – as the 2019-2020 ski and snowboard season begins in earnest.

Mother Nature has begun to smile upon on the West, particularly the northern and central Rockies where significant amounts fell on resorts from Alberta to southern Colorado.

In Colorado, snowfall typically comes first to the highest slopes, prompting a congenial yet competitive contest among ski and snowboard resorts in the #racetoopen for a new season before all the rest.

Here we go again! The second strong, early-winter storm has moved across the Rocky Mountain range in the western United States and Canada.

The #racetoopen is officially underway between Colorado's Loveland Ski Area and Arapahoe Basin. Meanwhile, Vermont's Killington Resort has also thrown a hat into the ring as well.

Any winter drive on I-70 between Denver past Vail can be challenging, especially because of all the hills, so the state highway department continues to find ways to make the trip easier.

With the race to opening day going strong and (hopefully) coming up soon, Keystone Resort is ramping up the competition with new snowmaking technology. The resort just replaced 50 of their snow guns, which were previously manual or semi-automatic, with new high-efficiency and fully automatic snow guns. 

After hiking in the mountains, the chance to soak sore muscles in a warm or hot springs pool beckons us all -- especially as the weather cools.

As autumn arrives, the Northern Hemisphere tilts farther and farther away from the sun – a shortening of the day's light that curbs photosynthesis and produces the brilliant yellows and reds of aspen trees in the Mountain West.