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Ski season wraps up at Table Mountain

Apr 1, 2016 | 12:10 PM

Despite unusually warm temperatures this winter, Table Mountain Regional Park west of the Battlefords had a fairly successful ski and snowboard season.

According to General Manager Lawrence Blouin, the season started off on the wrong foot as warm temperatures prevented crews from beginning the process of making  snow for the hill, which pushed back opening day.

“Typically we start making snow mid-November and we’re open by the first weekend of December. This year the first week of December we were still getting plus temperatures in the daytime and barely freezing at night, so we actually didn’t start making snow until probably three weeks later than normal.

“We started making snow on the 12th of December this year and opened on the 19th so we were probably two, or two and a half weeks late opening.”

Blouin added that the lack of sustained biting cold temperatures around minus 30 this winter allowed for a steady flow of visitors throughout the season rather than an influx of people when temperatures warmed like in previous years. Overall Blouin said visits to the hill were down slightly over last year, but not enough to seriously impact their budget.

Things wrapped up at the hill on March 24, and crews are now putting in the final couple weeks of work before everything is put away until the fall.

cstockwell@jpbg.ca