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It’s Spring. Let’s Go Skiing!

Despite temperatures slightly above freezing there were a few ice anglers on Plattsburgh Bay early Friday morning. It’s the time of year when winter and spring overlap. Despite warmer temperatures that come with April, it’s still cold enough that mountain slopes are open for skiing.
While there’s not much, if any, snow in the valleys you don’t have to venture very high to discover snow. And that means ski slopes across the region are still open.  

Vail Resorts owns Mount Sunapee in New Hampshire and Okemo Mountain in Ludlow, Vermont.  Northeast Communications Manager Bonnie MacPhearson, who is based at Okemo, says the texture of the snow in spring is perfect for skiing.  “We love spring skiing. It’s the prize that you get for putting up with all those harsh cold winter days throughout the season and then this is when you get to reap the benefits of some soft snow. It’s soft.  It’s carveable. It’s a lot of fun. We’re 100 percent open. We’ve got a lot of snow. We made a lot of snow. We turned about 350 million gallons of water into snow on the mountain this year and we’ve got over 12 feet of natural snow this season. So we’re gonna finish strong.”

McPherson says this is the time of year when resorts stop making snow. Nevertheless they expect to be open daily until mid-April.  “This is the time of year when we do a little ‘snow farming’ is what we call it where we’ll move snow around as we need to. We’re not making snow anymore. The temperatures are too iffy. They fluctuate a little too much and you know it’s really not efficient to be making snow unless you have real consistent cold temperatures and we’re going to have plenty of coverage right through the end of our season. Our closing day is going to be April 14th.”

The Olympic Regional Development Authority manages Whiteface, Gore and Bellayre ski areas in New York.  Spokesman Jon Lundin says the evenings are cold so crews can groom the mountains as enthusiasm for skiing continues.  “At this point we have stopped our snowmaking. You know we’re relying on the snow that Mother Nature gave us throughout the course of the year and the snow that she continues to bring us now and our man-made snow as well. So that’s where really the fall and the early part of the winter comes in in setting up a good strong base so that we’re able to maintain the coverage on the mountain for the spring skiing. We’re going to try to stay open as long as we can.  Last year May 5th was our last day of operations at Whiteface. I don’t know if we’re going to make it that far this year but we’ll go as long as the conditions allow us to go.”

Mad River Glen in Waitsfield is a cooperative owned by member skiers.  Marketing Director Eric Friedman says there’s a ton of snow remaining on the mountain.  “We’ve had an incredible run this year. You know we opened up Thanksgiving weekend and we’ve gone all the way through.  We have a shot at reaching our longest season ever. And people have been flocking here and we’re beating budget every week and new people coming out which is really gratifying. Because sometimes we don’t have great years so it’s nice to be able to have a good one.”

Friedman says they plan to be open daily through April 7th and may be open through mid-April.  “I think the big challenge for us is that we have plenty of snow here and then you get to the metropolitan areas in New York and Albany and places like that and there’s just not that much snow in the backyards and when people don’t see snow in their backyards they just can’t imagine that there’s snow up here. So you kind of have to combat that and then they start turning their attention away from skiing and towards doing different activities. But economically it really starts tailing off. And in the business we’re always frustrated. It’s like why do people stop skiing in March and April because it’s like that’s when it’s so much fun and it’s so good.”

Again, Okemo’s Bonnie MacPherson:   “It’s never  really for lack of snow that we end up closing for the season. It’s really because people just stop coming to go skiing. So we’ll often close with still plenty of great terrain. In our Superpipe we’ll have snow there ‘til July.”

Links to current ski conditions:

https://skivermont.com/conditions

https://www.iskiny.com/snow-reports

https://www.skinh.com/conditions

https://www.massvacation.com/skima/