ATTENTION SKIERS: White Pass Now Open - NBC Right Now/KNDO/KNDU Tri-Cities, Yakima, WA |

White Pass, WASH.--The snow came down hard Friday on White Pass, dumping some fresh powder for skiers and snowboarders on opening day.

"It's pretty cool," said Courtney Hutchin. "It's a lot of powder, a good day at White Pass. Everybody should really be up here because it's pretty sick."

"First day, it's pretty sweet," said Connor Craig. "Came up for the whole weekend here."

"It's just been a beautiful storm all day long," said Kathleen Goyette, the spokesperson for White Pass. "We're not in business without good storms so to have now about 18 inches has fallen in the past 24 hours. It's just raging right now, and people are having a blast up here."

Biting winds ripped around the mountain, sending white flurries everywhere and freezing any exposed skin. But that didn't deter the thousands of skiers that showed up at 9 a.m. for the first ski lift.

"Well it's really snowy, and I went up the first run and it was like powder," said Kristin Knight. "I fell so many times."

"The wind picks up the snow so you sometimes get a little snow in the face, but it's alright," Hutchin said.

White Pass needed this storm two weeks ago when ski crews originally wanted to open.

"We've been open for Thanksgiving the last three years," Goyette said. "We kind of got used to it. We certainly liked it so it's a little bit of a late start."

Skiers have been waiting for this snowfall. If it keeps up, ski crews said all the trails will be open by Saturday, which is not typical for this time of year.

"We typically do not get to 100 percent operation until much closer to Christmas time so this last storm cycle in the last four days has dropped well over two feet of snow," Goyette said. "It continues to pile up so this is fantastic.

"It's dumping so it's pretty good snow out there, and I see it opening all tomorrow," Hutchin said.

Skiers said they're impressed to see all the trails opened, but surprised there's not more people hitting the slopes.

"This is actually a small crowd for what opening day is, but it's finals week for a lot of schools," Craig said.

Ski crews said tons of people are renewing their passes, and they expect the weekend to be packed.