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Steamboat Springs — Steamboat Ski Area officials are dropping the ropes on additional terrain as the holidays approach and vacationer numbers increase.

On Friday, the ski area opened the Elkhead lift and trails including Spur Run, Rowel, Huffman’s, Moonlight, Flying Z, Big Meadow, Crowtrack, Lower Valley View, Lower Concentration and Bashor Bowl.

The east side of the mountain will begin to open up Monday, when the Sundown Express chairlift is fired up for the first time this season. Accordingly, trails including High Noon, One O’Clock, Two O’Clock, Daybreak and Highline will open to skiers and snowboarders. Other Monday trail openings include Drop Out, Rough Rider Basin and Headwall North.

Monday’s openings will bring the total terrain offerings to 80 trails and 1,113 skiable acres.

On Wednesday, the resort plans to run the Sunshine Express chairlift and open trails including Tomahawk, Quick Draw, Rendezvous Way, Broadway, Cub, Pup, Buckshot, Ramrod, Fawn and part of Spike, according to a Steamboat Ski and Resort Corp. news release. Those openings will increase the open terrain to 90 trails served by 11 lifts.

“We had to do some additional work in Sunshine Bowl due to the early December wind storm, but the opening of that area is only a few days behind our traditional schedule,” Doug Allen, Ski Corp.’s vice president of mountain operations, said in the release.

Ski area officials said they hope to open Mavericks Superpipe before Christmas Day.

Steamboat’s winter air service program into Yampa Valley Regional Airport began Thursday and ramps up Saturday with additional flights into YVRA from major cities including Atlanta, Newark and Minneapolis/St. Paul. Thursday’s flights brought in about 700 passengers, a number that will increase this weekend. The Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association’s lodging barometer forecasts 8,100 overnight guests in Steamboat lodging properties Saturday. That equates to about 50 percent occupancy.

The weekend weather should be ideal for travelers but less so for skiers and riders. The National Weather Service predicts sunny skies and daytime high temperatures in the upper 30s. Overnight lows will range from the single digits to the low teens. That weather pattern is expected to persist into the middle of next week.