All this snow is a good thing for the ski hills in our area, and most of them are busy getting ready for the season.
The roar of snow-making machines can be heard throughout Blue Mountain Resort.
It’s music to Marvin Thompson’s ears. This will be his fourth season snowboarding at Blue and he's counting down the days.
“I'm predicting dates in my head when the place is going to open, trying to get all my snowboarding gear ready to go and get myself situated so I’m the first on the chair lift,” he says.
The snow-making machines have been running nonstop on four runs at the resort since Saturday morning. The latest dumping of snow is helping create a solid base.
“We're attempting to cover some of our central trails with about 30 centimetres of snow,” says Ashley Boland with the resort. “Mother nature is calling for 15 more centimetres of natural snow so hopefully with the snow guns running over the next few days we'll hit opening day sooner rather than later.”
This latest blast of winter weather and the below-freezing temperatures have made the perfect snow-making conditions. In fact, ski resorts right across our region have turned on their machines.
At Mount Saint-Louis Moonstone, 170 snow machines are covering the hills with a thick blanket of snow. The ski resort is hoping to open four runs by Friday.
“For the first night of snow making the temperature we're experiencing is the type of weather we get in the middle of winter, -14C, so snow-making is running at full capacity,” says the ski hill’s general manger Robert Hunter.
Horseshoe resort has also been making snow since last week and will continue through tonight. The hills need at least 25 centimetres of snow cover before the runs can open. The resort is hoping that will happen in early December.
And at Snow Valley, the runs are already being groomed while snow-making machines turn more than 1.2 million litres of water into snow each day. Snow Valley's John Ball says they plan to open on Thursday and business is already picking up.
“The phones have been ringing off the hook ever since the weather got cold and we started to make snow,” he says. “And the snow storm yesterday really brought it on. People are booking their lessons for the Christmas period as well as January.”
It's not the earliest opening for Snow Valley but ball says its right on target.
Back at Blue, Thompson has his pass ready and though the resort hasn't scheduled an opening day yet he says it’s only a matter of time.
“Friday the hills were brown and green. It's a real turn around the last two days,” he says.
