Top Five Fridays: November 14, 2025
Preseason snowmaking was underway early in the morning this week, as Sunday River geared up for its opening day on Wednesday. Image: Sunday River on Facebook
#1: It’s Just Two Weeks into November and Winter is Already Picking Picking Favorites:
A gondola cab sits in the lift station at Killington, awaiting the first passengers of the season. Fortunately for area skiers and lonely cabs alike, the resort officially opened for the season on Wednesday, reuniting them after a long summer season. Image: Killington Resort on Facebook
Hello, and welcome to Top Five Fridays, the November 14, 2025 edition! This week we’re right back into the thick of early season madness as resorts across North America are off to unexpected starts. We’ll take you through the highs and lows of early winter across the country before shifting gears and getting into some FIS news, as with World Cup races resuming this week, there’s plenty to preview. From there, we’ll share a couple of quick updates from the worlds of the Winter Olympics and Uber Ski before rounding things out for the week with a whole host of edits from the week. Sound good? Great - then let’s jump right in!
First up this week is widespread coverage of the first few weeks of ski season in the United States. While we follow the ski news throughout the week to find topics for Top 5 Friday, that process ultimately concludes on Thursday, when we simply search Google News for the word “ski”. This week when we did that, the overwhelming majority of news coverage was from local outlets reporting on the current status of the ski season. For that reason alone we consider the status of ski season across America to be the biggest news of the week. In some locales the news we read was positive and exciting. In others - not so much. Let’s take this one from East to West.
Here in Vermont, things have been going very well from a weather standpoint. Signs of winter here crept in just after our report last Friday as the mountains of Northern Vermont received just enough snow to entice brave skiers to strap on their skins over the weekend. While first hand accounts suggest that conditions were wet and heavy at best, to barely there at all at worst, those modest first turns were quickly covered with more snow as the clouds opened up again on Monday and have barely let up since. It’s hard to give exact totals from the week as accumulations are very locally dependent, but we do know that the snowstake on Mansfield has hit 22”, which is well above average for this time of year. We also know that the Mad River Valley as well as Jay Peak have seen similar totals throughout the week with more snow predicted for Sunday and into next week. Here in Vermont, things are off to a tremendous start.
As for the resort side of life, Killington began spinning its lifts for passholders on Wednesday, with operations opening to the public yesterday. Likewise, Sunday River, the East’s other primary contender for earliest to open in the region, also began spinning lifts on Wednesday, officially marking the start of their season. With more snow on the way and snowguns blazing at resorts across the region, it feels safe to say that many more opening days will soon follow.
Unfortunately though, that’s not the case everywhere. In the Rocky Mountains, the Wasatch Range, and the true West Coast, conditions have been much drier. In Colorado, while there are currently 8 ski resorts open for business, they’ve managed to open with almost entirely man-made snow, and despite being the driest early season in nearly a decade, with the statewide snowpack being the second lowest since the 1980’s. Fortunately though, reprieve looks to be on the way as a trio of storms is expected to show up starting this weekend, bringing intermittent snowfall straight through Thanksgiving.
Just one state West, in Utah’s Salt Lake region, Solitude Mountain was expected to open this Sunday, pending the outcome of a storm that was predicted to roll into town later tonight. Unfortunately, that forecast has shifted and now the 3-6” that’s predicted won’t arrive until Sunday night. As such, the resort has pushed their opening day plans back to November 19th. At the moment, that would still make the resort the first to open in the region as others like Alta and Park City are aiming for next Friday, while Brighton and Snowbird expect to join a week later.
Finally, making our way all the way out towards the coast, Mammoth Mountain has also announced that it will be pushing back its opening day. Originally scheduled to open today, Mammoth delayed their opening to tomorrow as an early winter storm was expected to bring significant snowfall to the region ahead of tomorrow. Unfortunately, that storm isn’t producing as expected, forcing Mammoth to once again push back their opening day. Now, the resort is taking it day-by-day, saying that they’ll let skiers know about 24 hours before their lifts start spinning.
All in all, it’s been an interesting start to winter. Here on the East Coast, the mountains came alive this week and early season stoke is in the air. Out West, where early season turns tend to be plentiful by this date on the calendar, anticipation for the season continues to grow alongside frustrations with the weather. Fortunately though, help looks to be on the way and we’re quite sure that it won’t be long now until we’re all out on snow. To get a better idea of what’s happening in your neck of the woods, we recommend checking out OnTheSnow’s Snow Report page.
#2: FIS World Cup Ski Racing Resumes This Weekend in Levi. For Mikaela Shiffrin & Paula Moltzan, This Slalom Race is a Big One:
After a tremendous start to the season, Paula Moltzan is feeling primed and ready for the season. The media is starting to notice too, with Moltzan receiving plenty of coverage ahead of this weekend’s races.
Next up this week is more World Cup ski racing coverage as we find ourselves previewing not only this weekend’s events, but the season ahead as well. First things first, the most important thing to take away from this week’s coverage is that the second races of the season - and first slalom races - are scheduled to go down this weekend, with the women competing on Saturday and the men competing on Sunday. Taking place in Levi, Finland at the only venue on the circuit that’s in the Arctic Circle, the Levi races have become something of an annual tradition that ushers in not only the start of the World Cup slalom season, but also the holidays as well as the event tends to bring a festive element to the competition. Case in point: the winner of both the men's and women's races are given an honorary reindeer. As it stands, Mikaela Shiffrin has the largest stable of any competitor, with a ridiculous eight reindeer to her name. In a season in which Shiffrin hopes to hone in on her slalom results in an effort to prepare for the Olympics, all eyes will likely be on her as she competes for her ninth - a number that we believe only Santa himself has achieved.
Of course as we all know at this point, some of Shiffrin’s stiffest competition is likely to come from within her own team. After making an incredible entrance to the season with a second place finish in Soelden, Shiffrin’s teammate Paula Moltzan has been receiving a ton of coverage, and rightfully so. In an interview with Olympics.com, Moltzan expresses that she feels as though she’s finally turned a corner in her career and hopes that this season will be a breakthrough year for her. For her, that would mean being a regular contender for podiums, not an athlete who makes just a few appearances a season. While that may sound like a bit of lip service, Moltzan’s claim is well supported by her recent races. Prior to placing second in the GS race at Soelden, you only have to go back five races to find Moltzan’s last podium: a third place finish in a slalom race in Sestriere, Italy on February, 23, 2025. Between that race and the Soelden opener, Moltzan notched three 6th place finishes and a DNF. Zooming out a little further, it’s worth noting that the entirety of Moltzan’s 2024/2025 season went down in similar fashion. In the 2025 calendar year, Moltzan has either DNF’d or placed in the top 8 in all but one of her races. Expanding further, she also recorded twelve top six finishes in 2025, out of 17 races so far. Of the remaining five races, she DNF’d in four. So, while Moltzan says she hopes this is the year when she turns a corner and becomes a legitimate podium threat in every race, well, we believe her. In fact, you could almost argue that she already can make that claim. Either way, it goes without saying that we’re extremely excited to watch Moltzan race this year, as well as the possibility that the U.S. Women’s team could have a historically great season as a group.
As for the men’s side of things, well, we once again find ourselves tempering expectations heading into the weekend as it bears repeating that technical disciplines still aren’t the strength of the men’s team. That said, the team does have a rising star in Ben Ritchie who’s coming off the best year of his career, as well as Jett Seymour, who’s coming off back to back wins in slalom races at the Australian New Zealand Cup. So, while slalom may not be the strength of the men’s team, there is still considerable talent and Levi could prove to be a breakout event for either athlete. We’ll have to wait until Sunday to see. For now, you can preview the race schedule here.
#3: The Olympics Wants to Bring Some of its Summer Sports to the Winter Games. The FIS and Other Wintersports Organizations Are Not Happy About it:
This season, for the first time ever, Ski Mountaineering will be a part of the Olympic Games. Some fear that if the Olympics begins adding traditionally summer sports to the winter games, other niche sports akin to Skimo may not get the same opportunity in the future.
Speaking of competitive skiing, our third topic this week is by far the juiciest as the Summer and Winter Olympic Federations are officially beefing over which sports should be included in the Winter Games. Here’s the story:
Every September, the International Olympic Committee gets together to discuss a myriad of issues related to the games. From choosing host destinations, to new sports, and more - the annual fall meeting plays an important role in determining the future of the games. This year at the fall meeting, the IOC put together a committee called “Fit for the Future”, which is tasked with reviewing sports to be included in future events. Alongside the creation of that committee, the IOC also shared the idea that some of the Summer International Federation’s (the counterpart to the Winter Olympic Federation) non-olympic sports could be included in the Winter Games. In their eyes, the argument is two-fold: the cost of the Summer Games has been growing rapidly in recent years, while the Winter Games become harder and harder to host as climate change makes wintery conditions less predictable. Their solution would be to move some summer sports to the winter event to cap the cost of the Summer Games, while bolstering the Winter Games with sports that are less weather dependent. On paper, there’s some sense to be had here.
This week however, all of the organizations that make up the Olympic Winter Federation released a statement adamantly opposing the move. In other words, that means that not only does the FIS oppose bringing summer sports into the Winter Olympics, but so do the International Biathlon Union, International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, International Ice Hockey Federation, International Luge Federation, International Skating Union,and the World Curling Federation. Put bluntly, opposition is unanimous, with the key argument from their joint statement being, "The Winter Olympic Federations are firm in our belief that such an approach would dilute the brand, heritage, and identity that make the Olympic Winter Games unique -- a celebration of sports practiced on snow and ice, with distinct culture, athletes, and fields of play."
As for the skiing side of this story, the FIS expanded on this point with a strong example: the upcoming inclusion of Ski Mountaineering events in this year’s games. In the eyes of the FIS, the addition of this sport is the perfect counterargument for those wanting to bring summer sports to the winter games. Should that happen, it would create less space for the inclusion of more winter sports that rightfully deserve to participate. For now, there’s not much movement on this story, and more information won’t come to light until the next IOC meeting in February. That said, with such united and adamant opposition, it’s hard to see this concept progressing. For now, you can learn more about this by checking out the statement from the FIS, or in this coverage from USA Today.
#4: Uber Partners with Epic Pass, Re-introduces “Uber Ski” Ahead of the 2025/2026 Season:
While it’s not a new concept for the company - this image came from a blog post made 10 years ago - Uber’s partnership with the Epic Pass might be the move that finally gets the ski world to embrace the transportation service. Image: Blog Post on Uber.com
Finally, we’re rounding out our coverage this week with a story that, to be quite honest, we’re mostly sharing as we think it might be helpful for some of our readers to know about. If you’ve ever taken a ski vacation, either solo or with your family, then you already know that lining up transportation to your destination from the airport can be a hassle at best and a significant expense at worst. While some destinations don’t offer lodging at the mountain and require getting a rental car, there are plenty of ski resorts these days that do offer on-hill lodging where access to daily transportation isn’t necessary. In these cases, current options include lining up a shuttle from the airport which isn’t always easy, or renting a car that’ll likely sit unused for a majority of your trip. Now, Uber wants to offer you a third option.
This week, Uber announced a new offering called, “Uber Ski”. Launched as a new feature within its app, Uber Ski is a new partnership with Epic Pass in which the transportation company hopes to encourage ski travelers to use their app to line up transportation to the mountain.
Now, we’re going to go ahead and strip away the noise from this story as the reality is, it’s a lot of hollow marketing. The partnership with Epic Pass essentially means that Uber put a link to the Epic Pass in their app, and Vail Resorts probably paid a good amount of money to do so. As far as the car rental experience goes, using the Uber Ski portion of the app feels pretty much the same as using the app to rent a car to go anywhere. There are, however, two major differences - and this is where we think this could be helpful for our readers.
With the new Uber Ski portion of the app, users can do two things: book a ride up to 90 days in advance, and book a ride that’s equipped with ski racks and storage space for plenty of gear. Again, circling back to the experiences of anyone who’s ever gone on a ski trip, you already know: lining up transportation can be a real hassle. With this new option though, rather than rolling the dice with the Uber app upon arriving at your destination’s airport and hoping that an appropriate transportation option will be available, skiers and boarders can now work that part of the puzzle into the planning stage of their trip. In other words, rather than worrying about renting a car for a week or finding a shuttle, you can now book transportation for that leg of your trip well ahead of time while ensuring that the vehicle has enough space to transport your entire group and all of its equipment. For those traveling to destinations like Park City, Aspen, Stowe - or countless other ski resorts with lodging at the base and having a vehicle on hand is unnecessary, this could be a game change.
Before closing this highlight out, we do want to offer one more piece of clarity: this concept isn’t actually new for Uber, they’re simply hoping that they can make its use more widespread through its partnership with Epic Pass. In fact, in researching this story, we came across a blog post from 2015 in which Uber is advertising an uberSKI product that allows guests in the Reno / Tahoe region to book a vehicle with AWD and roof racks. So, this week’s news certainly isn’t entirely new, but we do think it’s valuable information for our traveling readers. You can learn more about this new product offering by either pulling it up in the app, or clicking here.
#5: And Now, Your Edits of the Week: Just a Month and a Half After Completing His Mission, Red Bull and Andrzej Bargiel Have Shared a 31 Minute Cut of His Everest Descent:
SLVSH is Back With an Absolute All Mountain Banger from Freeriders Kelly Hilleke & Reed Townsend:
Kelly’s about to be a rookie on the Freeride World Tour this season, but could use some help funding his travels. Go check out his GoFundMe if you want to chip in!
Siver Voll Fans Rejoice - He’s Just Released a Brand New Street Part:
*** Some Explicit Language in Soundtrack ***