For those not much into the hunting scene, they had a chance to hit the slopes early this year.

Despite the lack of snow on the ground, artificial snow making has made for an early open to Spirit Mountain's downhill ski and snowboarding season.

Spirit Mountain started its chair lifts for its earliest opening in five years, and skiers and snowboarders alike were clamoring for that first run down the hill.

The popular ski resort opened its doors early due to a whole lot of help from Mother Nature.

"You know this has been a fabulous November it's the earliest opening we've had in the last five years and not only are we open, but we're open with a ton of snow, we got the whole sno-cross track made, we have a full run from top to bottom and a couple of other smaller runs open so we've been really fortunate with the recent temperatures and we hope they hold out so we can finish snow making," says Briana Johnson.

The start of skiing is definitely exciting, but that's just the tip of the iceberg for Spirit Mountain.

During thanksgiving weekend the mountain will play host to the AMSOIL championship Snow-cross races, that brings snowmobile fans and big dollars to the city of Duluth, but Briana Johnson the Director of Marketing for Spirit Mountain says skiers and boarders drive the economic engine for the resort.

"Skiing and snowboarding are always the bread and butter for our business it's what we look forward too and what pays the bills it's what we have fun doing. Sno-cross is a great event for the whole city of Duluth, it's a great event for us and we're just really happy we can do both events at the same time."

Skiers and snowboarders at the mountain were just happy to "carve up" the slopes for the first time a little bit early.

"About June I look forward to ski season. Kind of get the snow fever a little bit."

"We're skiing today for the first time of the season, and the snow is good and there's no lift lines."

"It's nice to start the season really early, it's been pushed back each year and this year we actually have snow good weather and a good turnout, you get to try out your new equipment, it's a good deal."

Spirit Mountain officials expect the entire mountain to be open by the middle of December.