``It's looking like winter up here. Everything is white,'' Loveland spokesman John Sellers said Thursday.

Loveland won the race last season for the sixth straight year, opening on Oct. 14.

Loveland began making snow Wednesday. Arapahoe Basin fired up its snow guns Sunday but shut them down because of warm weather. The resort planned to resume Thursday after receiving 15 centimetres of natural snow.

``We're hoping to beat Loveland this year,'' spokeswoman Leigh Hierholzer said. ``We've had snowmaking for five years but this year it really is a race. We have 14 guns on the hill.''

Loveland and Arapahoe Basin have an advantage over other Colorado resorts because they are higher, with base elevations above 3.2 kilometres.

Copper Mountain also started making snow on Sunday but isn't competing for first-to-open honours, planning to fire up its lifts on Nov. 3, said spokesman Carlos Garcia.

``I'm psyched. You can feel the energy building around here,'' he said.

Garcia said Copper Mountain got 10-15 centimetres inches of natural snow Wednesday night. Snow was falling in the mountains again Thursday.

Colorado Ski Country USA, the industry's trade group, reported Silverton Mountain had 36 centimetres of snow, Breckenridge 30 and Vail 28.

Other amounts ranged from 18 centimetres at Aspen Mountain to five at Steamboat. The U.S. National Weather Service predicted more snow through Sunday morning.

``The snowfall is just what we need at this time of the year. It gets people excited, including in our destination markets,'' said Molly Cuffe of Ski Country.

Colorado ski resorts hope to match or better their record set last year of 12.53 million skier days, up almost five per cent from the previous record of 11.98 million in 1997-98. A skier day amounts to the purchase and use of a lift ticket by a skier or snowboarder.

Nationally, the industry set a record last year with 58.8 million visits, up 2.3 per cent from the previous record, set in 2002-2003.