On the upper slopes of Mt. Hood Meadows, skiers found fresh snow Monday morning.
Both Meadows and Timberline are open 7 days a week now. Skiers and snowboarders are loving it.
“Absolutely. Definitely. Been looking forward to it all fall,” said Aubrey Strayer from Portland.
“It's good. It will get better and better of course, but it is pretty early on for us in the Northwest,” said Susan Benedict from White Salmon, Washington.
Meadows is often packed on weekends and for the first time is using something called Dynamic Pricing to encourage people to use other days. It’s similar to airlines charging more for big, busy travel holidays.
“What we’re trying to do is get people who have the flexibility to purchase the days that have the lower prices so they can move off of those peak days,” said Dave Tragethon, V.P. of Marketing.
The resort wants you to go online and pick the date you want to buy a ticket, sort of like a reservation.
An online check shows a Wednesday in January costs $59 for a lift ticket. The following Saturday the price jumps to $79.
“The more we can get people to move to the off peak days or even off peak time frames, come at night -- or come here later in the day instead of having to come at 9 o'clock -- the better job we can do managing the experience for all those people who are here on the peak days,” Tragethon said.
As for the roadways, Highway 26 was mostly bare Monday. We found plows working Highway 35 to clear overnight snow.
A spokesman said workers with the Oregon Department of Transportation are working 24 hours a day now to keep up as the storms blow through.
“We've got crews, working around the clock right now trying to keep these roads clear as we get more and more precipitation through the winter. Our crews train for this. They'll be out there ready to go," said Don Hamilton with ODOT.