Lee Canyon resort opens, much to the delight of skiers and children — PHOTOS

Grinning as she shuffled her feet, 20-year-old snowboarder Taylor Turner could barely stay still as she glanced up at the snow-covered slopes of Lee Canyon.

“It’s exhilarating,” she said. “It’s just straight adrenaline every time.”

Turner and her friend Liana Lasic, 20, were just two of the hundreds of locals and tourists who cleared their schedules for the kickoff of the ski and snowboarding season Friday at Lee Canyon, a ski resort near Mount Charleston.

Located about an hour from central Las Vegas, the resort reopened for the season with a handful of its 24 trails accessible to visitors. More trails are expected to reopen as temperatures cool and the area sees more snow.

The ski season began later this season than last year, which Marketing Director Jim Seely said was driven less by temperatures and more due to the resort’s desire to prepare staff and ensure everything was ready for the holiday season.

Though the first half of November was warmer than average, the latter half of the month cooled down, said National Weather Service meteorologist Barry Pierce. Since then, temperatures in the mountains have been generally cooler than last year, when there was an average amount of snowfall in Lee Canyon, Pierce and Seely said.

“It seems like the perfect time to open,” Seely said.

To instructors’ shouts of “Make pizza!” children at the resort just learning to ski pushed the planks on their feet into the V-shape of a slice of pizza Friday, allowing them to slow down.

Nearby, a group of kids chattered excitedly and shouted their love of the mountains beneath the snow-covered peaks.

“It’s like the first day of school,” said Lasic, who’ll work as a parking attendant on weekends during the winter season, as she joked with friends.

Seely agreed.

“It’s kind of like coming back to school after summer vacation,” he said.

After hitting the slopes and experiencing the first day of snow sports for the season, 28-year-old Michael Tuttle and 26-year-old Kelsey Taelour hit the books.

Or the tablet computers, to be exact.

The UNLV graduate students in physical therapy decided on the spur of the moment to trek out to Lee Canyon about a week before the end of the semester and their final exams.

“It’s a different environment,” Taelour said. “It makes you focus.”

The pair studied while taking in the views from the ski lift, Taelour skiied while Tuttle snowboarded, and they spent the rest of their time studying at the bar.

Neither of the two had been to Lee Canyon before, and both said it definitely wasn’t what they expected in the Southern Nevada desert.

People “have the option of relaxing and taking it easy, or if you want to be aggressive, it’s right there,” Tuttle said. “You can go for it.”

To Valentina Fields, 46, the opening offered the perfect opportunity to warm up and get back on her skis without having to travel too far.

The local real estate agent said that though the mountains may not be the grandest she’s ever seen during her 11 years of skiing, they’re a perfect site for a day trip.

“When you’re busy with work, you can come up and make this happen,” she said.

The resort is expected to stay open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day through the end of the season, which can range from March to late spring, Seely said. Walk-up tickets are about $70, though other ticket options are available in spring and some discounts are available online.

Contact Pashtana Usufzy at pusufzy@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563. Follow @pashtana_u on Twitter.