INKOM — With mountaintop mercury levels dropping quickly, Pebble Creek Ski Area is set to open in the coming weeks.

Despite an unusually warm winter and a record high temperature of 57 degrees in Pocatello on Christmas Day, Pebble Creek Ski Area Assistant General Manager Dana Barrow hopes to open the popular winter sports resort sometime in early January.

”It’s not entirely unusual to not be able to open by Christmas week,” Barrow said. “We really strive for it every year, because it’s such an exciting time for people to get up and ski. But it’s not completely unusual. We usually have a little bit more snow on the ground than we did up until today, so that part was a little unusual. But it is snowing up there quite a bit, and the temperatures are dropping rapidly this week.”

One of Barrow’s biggest concerns is that all of the seasonal employees Pebble has hired are unable to work until the ski area opens.

”We’re just really ready, not just to ski, but to make sure all of our employees have some work,” Barrow said.

While it’s entirely dependent on getting enough snow in the mountains, Barrow said she would love to open on the first two days of the new year.

Thanks to cold temperatures and surprising snowfall over Christmas weekend, Barrow said Pebble Creek Ski Areas snow makers have been making snow around the clock since Friday.

“As long as the temps take hold enough, they’ll continue to do that,” Barrow said. “It looks like a storm should be coming in on Thursday. If we get a little bit more snow out of that storm, then we would like to be able to open the Aspen area only this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.”

The ski area has also already set plans for large children’s group instruction by Jan. 9.

“It really looks like the weather’s going to be cold enough and there’s quite a bit of snow in the forecast,” Barrow said. “It’s a little bit different up on the mountain than it is down here in the valley, which is good. It could be a matter of days, instead of weeks, hopefully.”