Much of the Western Slope is under a winter weather advisory for 24 hours as another storm hits the mountains, according to the National Weather Service office in Grand Junction.

Up to 7 inches of new snow  could hit  much of the northern and central mountains.

This is the magic week in which most ski areas will open for the season. Monarch, Crested Butte and Steamboat open Wednesday. Aspen Mountain, Snowmass and Telluride open Thursday. Purgatory opens Friday.

That just leaves a few hold-outs in the Aspen family, and good ol’ Ski Cooper, which relies on natural snow fall, and expects to open Dec. 4.

Beautiful, fluffy flakes  but no significant accumulation are expected along the Front Range today.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today announced an extensive public service radio campaign urging Americans to connect with nature and visit a National Wildlife Refuge.

The public service radio campaign consists of eight 60-second spots extolling the sights and sounds of refuges and their efforts to preserve some of these species. Listen to them here.

Mountain opens the day before Thanksgiving for its 70th season. Read the ski area history Monarch has received 60 inches of snow so far this season and currently has a 36 inch mid-mountain base.  The forecast is calling for snow showers this weekend. The area will have 3 chairlifts; Pioneer, Panorama & Tumbelina and the Children’s Ski School carpet lifts in operation.  Garfield and Breezeway chairs will open the following Saturday.

I’m not even going to rewrite this press release in an ironic way because it is just so silly all by itself:

Utah’s Deer Valley Resort kicks off its winter ski season again with its annual Deer Valley Celebrity SkiFest, Dec. 5-6. The invitational ski event pairs former Olympic ski legends with television and film celebrities.

The Deer Valley Celebrity SkiFest will include giant slalom races on both Saturday, Dec. 5 and Sunday, Dec. 6 on Deer Valley’s Birdseye ski run. The competition will be televised by CBS on Sunday, Dec. 20 at 5 p.m. EST following the NFL.

Celebrities scheduled to attend at this time include: Cheryl Tiegs, Larry David, Bobby Kennedy, Jr., Max Kennedy, Chris Kennedy, Cheryl Hines, Gloria Rueben, Rob Morrow, Neil Patrick Harris, Dylan Bruno and David Conrad.

While I am willing to admit that child surgeon Dougie Howzer may also have mad ski skills,  I pitty the Olympian who gets stuck with Larry David.

Who will be the three snarky judges at the bottom who critique the stars’ turns? And who will win?

The old-school, Denver City-owned ski area, which is now managed by IntraWest, first opened in 1939. Today it opens for its 70th season with 33 acres, three chairlifts, two trails and the Sorensen Park beginner area. Seven features in the Re-railer terrain park, including rails and jibs, will also be open.

“We’ve put finishing touches on The Village at Winter Park, the ski train from Denver is back and we have great deals for early season guests, like free lift tickets with a two-night stay now through Christmas day,” said Rob Perlman, vice president of sales and marketing at Winter Park Resort.

Early season lift ticket prices are adult: $65; child: $45; senior: $55, 70+: $35; half-day: $59. Season passes begin at $369, available at www.skicolorado.com.

Was just at Red Rock Canyon, and boy this slow melt is making everything super muddy. Avoid the usual suspects: Stratton Open Space, the east end of Red Rock Canyon, parts of Cheyenne Mountain State Park.

I was feeling a little sorry for myself this morning when reached the bottom of the Manitou Incline at about 5:45 a.m. It was cold and snowy and I didn’t really feel like climbing 2000 feet before breakfast, but what with having a seven-month-old, if I don’t go early, I don’t go at all. Anyway, I put on my Micro Spikes and trudge up the ties. About 1,500 feet up, I ran into one of those Scout and Atticus moments where you learn your lot in life is not so tough. A platoon of young grunts in full battle gear (minus rifles) was lugging huge packs up the Incline, struggling to stay upright on the slick snow in their combat boots. I bet their sergeant got them out of bed at 4 a.m.

Summit county seems to have received about a quarter of that. Pikes just has a dusting up high.

But this may be a good year to plan on some backcountry adventures  on Pikes Peak. El Nino is setting up in the Pacific, which generally gives Pikes a healthy snowpack, especially in the spring. Maybe it will be a year to ski from the train down the east cirque.

Above is a map showing Colorado counties that voted in 2006 for Amendment 44 — a law that would have made possession of a small amount of weed legal. Below is a map of Colorado’s ski resorts. Notice any overlap? Aspen Times has a funny story about it here.

Out there has a cover story Thursday about all the cool new apps that turn your iphone into everything from a hiking gps reciever with detailed trail maps to a bike computer to a full color nature guide.

I’m on the fence about some of these apps. None of the apps designed to replace other electronic devices (camera, gps, bike computer) work as well as the real thing. Especially if you get out into the hills. On the other hand, they are also relatively cheap and fun, and many work great in or on the edge of the city.

The reference apps, for bird watching or knot tying or wild flower identification work fabulously. You can carry what would be many, many pounds of infromation without adding a fraction of an ounce to your phone, which, chances are, you carry while hiking anyway.

I’ll add some more videos Thursday so you can get an up-close look at the apps.

It turns out Colorado Springs is not the only town with a 2000-vertical-foot abandoned incline railway that has become a popular hiking trail. We are just the only town that gets snow on ours.

Koko Head, a 2,200-foot volcanic crater on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaii, also has one. And like the one here, it was closed until public outcry prompted officials to reopen it.

Who knew?

See photos here.

Crested Butte Mountain Resort’s five-year effort to push its ski area onto nearby Snodgrass Mountain hit a barrier, according to the Denver Post.

The U.S. Forest Service rejected the resort’s  development plan and blocked its application for National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, review, a vital hurdle to expand the ski resort by 276 acres onto undeveloped terrain on neighboring Snodgrass Mountain.  The Forest Service cited a public divided on the issue , the impact of a surge of skiers on public services and “geologic hazards presented by unstable soils and unpredictable hydrology,” at the site.
Read more here.

The question is whether this move is a sign that the latest wave of expansion has ended. Breckenridge, Telluride and Arapahoe Basin all added considerable acreage during the bush years. I heard, anecdotally, that Breck wanted to get its plan for a Peak 6 expansion approved before the change in administration. It didn’t happen. It may be hard to tell what the trend is since the economy has melted the need for expansion anyway, but is the Forest Service entering an era where it is cool to developement? We’ll see.

The Gazette reported in a timely fashion on election night that mountain running legend Matt Carpenter is now a small-town politician who is not afraid to use running puns. I just have been remiss in passing it on:

“In the Ward 3 race, runner Matt Carpenter was winning easily. Carpenter had 77 percent to 29 percent for his opponent, innkeeper Karen Cullen.

Carpenter credited his victory to literally running the ward.

“I thought it was a small enough ward that I could go around and talk to constituents and see what they were feeling,” Carpenter said. “I didn’t pull a list of registered voters; I wanted to talk to everyone.”

Carpenter noted the defeat of ballot measure 2C, which was losing by about 2 to 1 in early returns in Colorado Springs would affect Manitou as well.

Looking toward January , Carpenter said he really thought he could “hit the ground running.”

“I’ve been going to council meetings forever,” he said. “The only thing that will change is which side of the dais I’m sitting on. My number one thing is to get back to where everybody in Manitou has a voice again.”

I’ve been  scolding Colorado ski resorts for a while now about talking green while doing little that makes a big difference such as opening a few weeks later (making snow is a serious energy suck) and rewarding carpoolers with free parking. (Aspen is an exception.)

Well, Breckenridge did not listen to the first part. The resort opens Thursday at Peak 8 with lots of man-made snow. But this year they have changed parking rates to reward carpoolers. Huzzah! Breck, you get a gold star.

This year parking in the Gondola lots will be $5 during the week (Mon-Thurs) and $10 on weekends (Fri-Sun) and Holidays. But for cars with four or more people,  lots will be free during the week  and $5 on the weekends  and holidays. To kick off the carpooling incentives opening weekend, carpool with four or more and enter to win four Club Level seats to a Denver Nuggets or Colorado Avalanche game or Breckenridge Ski School Adventure Sessions for up to four people.

I guess we all knew it was coming. According to Variety, Danny Boyle, the director of Slumdog Millionaire, plans to make  “127 Hours,” a film that tells the story of  Aron Ralston, a former software engineer and outdoor enthusiast who turned motivational speaker after his right forearm got pinned for nearly five days under a boulder during a hike in Utah in May, 2003, and Ralston used a dull knife tocut it off.

My question is this: Yes, it is a facinating and allegorical predicament Ralston got into, but it lacks a lot of action, and people already know what happened, so how do you fill 90 minutes of film?

The Wyoming legislature may consider a bill that would require require permitted backcountry users in grizzly country to carry bear spray.

The guy pushing the bill said conflicts increasing at a “nearly exponential rate,”  but also human deaths caused by grizzly bears. While only 44 people have died from grizzly attacks since the beginning of the 20th century, the majority of those attacks have occurred in the last 20 years.

I guess that is better than the unofficial Alaskan law that you just have to carry a big bad gun. At least if you shoot yourself with pepper spray the sting wears off after a while.