Thunder Bay-area downhill and cross-country ski centres are not letting a lack of snow for the second-year hamper their operations.
Skiing at all the rural areas appears great this year.
“We’re up and running, operating and conditions are fantastic,” said Jason Gerry, owner and operator of Loch Lomond Ski Area, who credits their state-of-the-art snow-making equipment as the key.
“We’re making all kinds of snow. We have modern snow-making equipment as well as grooming equipment so even when we get rain, it doesn’t affect us very long because we’re able to renew and create a great ski surface with our equipment.”
Gerry said manufacturers are on top of the climate changes and have improved the equipment technology, and to keep up every year, he reinvests in modern, snow-making equipment.
“The whole global climate change has also been something that the ski industry has been watching closely. As average temperatures have increased a little bit around the, around the world, lots of areas in Europe and across North America have had to adapt,” he said.
Typically, the rural areas around Thunder Bay receive more snow than inside the city. Ski area operators want people to know that even though it could be raining in town, the ski areas are more than likely receiving that precipitation in snow.
Across the highway at Kamview Nordic Centre, the season got off to a great start.
“Then it was up and down and up and down,” said Dave Suttie, the centre’s manager. “We got that big dump of 30 centimetres of snow and things were going really choice, and then we got the rain.”
Suttie quickly had it back up and running, concentrating on keeping 10 kilometres open.
“The unfortunate thing is we don’t have any classic tracks in right now. We just can’t do it safely because with the rain melting the snow, we have an ice layer between the ground and the snow. If I put in a classic track it’ll be like going down a luge track.”
He added that they installed new lighting and there are some classic trails around the centre’s stadium, but the rest is for skating-style skiing.
In the north, the Lappe Ski Centre is in full operation hosting races and night skiing.
“When it was raining in town, we had a miracle with four or five centimetres of snow falling, which was very wet,” said Tuija Puiras, the Lappe centre’s owner.
“It packed about two inches of wet snow onto the trails, but it was enough that we have snow and it’s not icy, so our conditions are quite good. We were able to pull the races through and now most of our trails are open for the general public, our lights are on at night, and skiing is normal.”
Puiras kept a close eye on the centre’s well water level and arranged to have portable restroom facilities for the athletes and spectators during the races so they didn’t use excessive amounts of water inside the chalet.
Over at Mount Baldy, owner Jason Kardas, and his brother Daniel, said skiing on their hill is “way better” than last year.” He noted many people living in the area struggled last year with low well and pond water levels, which he called “super challenging.”
“This year is completely different. “We have lots of water because we got rain in September and October,” Kardas said. “We have just been doing a little bit more snowmaking than we’d like.”
This weekend, beginning today, they will open another run.
“Generally we open our main run at the end of January, so we’re about two weeks ahead of schedule,” he said. “It’s weird because there have been years we’ve opened at Halloween and then (this season) we had a cold start around Christmas time. It’s just really weird and it’s a head-scratcher.”
