High hopes at Mammoth last November as winter 2010-11 Began!
Ski areas in the USA reported a record 60.54 million skier visits last season, thanks largely it seems to record-breaking snowfall in the West of the country, and largely-good conditions for most of the season in the East too.
Skier numbers were further helped when a record 11 ski areas opened for Fourth of July celebrations, thanks to huge snow bases built up through last winter and spring, attracting tens of thousands more skiers to their slopes for the first weekend of July.
The country's industry body the National Ski Areas Association said the 60.54 million skier/snowboarder visits figure was 0.1 percent more than the previous record of 60.5 million set in 2007-08 and marked a return to growth after two years of worldwide-recession linked decline.
It was also only the second time that US resorts attracted more than 60 million skier visits and snowfall was up by nearly 30% on the average, at the highest level ever recorded in 20 yrars of collating snowfall data.