The thermometer hovered around zero Wednesday morning, opening day at Whitefish Mountain Resort, as Garret Caffrey and his friends Cameron Akers and Emmanuel Khodyrev claimed their spot at the front of the Chair 1 lift line.

Caffrey scored third chair on the season-opener last ski season. Pretty good, but not first. He wasn’t going to get edged this season.

“We got here at 6:30 this morning,” said Caffrey, bundled up with only the tip of is his nose showing from beneath a pair of mirrored lens goggles.

Khodyrev admitted “it’s a little cold today.”

“My toes are dead,” he said, only half-jokingly.

But reports of minus 10 at the summit with wind chills dipping to minus 30 weren’t enough to cool the group’s optimism for the upcoming ski season.

“I feel like it’s going to be a really good season — even better than last year,” Caffrey said.

The friends from Columbia Falls planned to explore the thigh-deep powder stashes on Whitetail for their first run of the winter.

The resort opened with an impressive 53-inch settle base at the summit, with five lifts serving terrain on the north side and Flower Point. By 10 a.m., ski patrol opened front-side favorites like North Bowl, Moe Mentum, Over the Hill Gang, Evan’s Heaven and Lee’s Way.

Hoots and hollers could be heard across Big Mountain as skiers and snowboarders sampled the early-season “cold smoke” powder.

Snow-making machines were running full blast Wednesday as the resort worked to shore up some of the high-traffic areas around the village and on Toni Matt.

About 1,200 skiers showed up for the mid-week opening.

“For a chilly Wednesday, we’re happy with that,” resort spokesperson Riley Polumbus said. “That’s pretty close to what we expected.”

On Monday, there was a settled base of 55 inches at the summit and 72 runs were open. Chairs 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 11 and the Magic Carpet were running.