If you’re an early riser, you’ve probably seen the snow guns at work at Steamboat Ski Area as snowmaking crews take advantage of ideal weather conditions to make up for Mother Nature’s reticence to deliver the real stuff.

Thanks to the efforts of these teams of professionals, Steamboat Ski Area opened on time, the day before Thanksgiving, which was a huge feat in light of the minimal snow that’s fallen in the Yampa Valley and on high. To date, the snowmaking efforts have been record setting. In the words of Dave Hunter, vice president of mountain operations, “What we’ve been doing in the last seven days is unheard of.”

Hunter was interviewed Dec. 11, and he gave credit to staff, cooperative weather and modern infrastructure for the ski mountain’s snowmaking success. As of Friday, the ski area has eight lifts running, which serve 24 trails and 287 acres of terrain. His teams have utilized 146 snowmaking guns and had run 3.1 million gallons of water through them as of Dec. 4.

Read more at Steamboat Today.