It’s that time of year again where the temperatures start to drop, the leaves morph into beautiful colors and we start to think about what the season will hold for us.

This morning in Boulder, fresh snow blanketed cars throughout the town and the idea of the first lifts starting to spin was on the mind. Which resort will be first to open always tough to predict, but every year we wait for that press release from the Rocky Mountains to shed some light on one of the biggest questions of the season.

In years past, Loveland Ski Area and Arapahoe Basin competed to be the first. Last year, surprisingly, Wolf Creek opened with some two-feet of fresh powder to pull into first place for the season with A-Basin second and Loveland a close third. This morning, after less than an inch of new snowfall, precious press releases arrived from nearby Colorado resorts: Both Loveland and A-Basin have fired up the guns and so has Copper Mountain.

So when will they open? No official date has been set for Loveland or A-Basin but rumors are spreading. It typically takes Loveland about two weeks (roughly 18 inches of base) to get the white ribbon of death deep enough to ride and we can assume that it’s about the same for A-Basin. Our estimates would put that at around the 18th of October. But with a little help from Mother Nature we might be lucky enough to be shredding next weekend, and you can rest assure that we will be there to celebrate the 2012/2013 season. As for Copper, they announced November 2nd to be the official opening day.

Check out the gallery of snowmaking photos from A-Basin, Loveland and Copper below. Winter is coming…