More snow!

It was -6 when I pulled into the parking lot this morning. We have had to remind a lot of our holiday week guests this week that snowmaking has been a challenge this fall & early winter and when we feel temps like today.  Its  

easy to forget the 60 degree weather the week after Thanksgiving, the rain & thunderstorms a couple weeks ago, and of course…the tornado watches just two weeks ago. It was even 45 degrees with more rain on Christmas Eve. 

Even though it’s the holiday week, we are taking full advantage of these cold temps now to make snow all over the property. We are making additional snow on open runs, expanding beginner terrain & magic carpet areas, widening & building the base on runs like Bakkelyka and other major runs, and of working to open additional terrain like the Back Bowl. We are also piling up snow in the terrain park for a more expansive build early next week. 

We plan to make a lot of snow over the next few days and we’ll have a better idea when the Back Bowl and additional areas will be open very soon, stay tuned.

Hug a snowmaker

Our snowmaking mountain ops team has done a tremendous job dealing with some challenging snowmaking conditions this year but they are relentless. Guns are running everywhere and more of your favorite runs will be opening soon. We are trying to get as many runs and lifts open as possible with the holidays coming soon. 

FYI…we need to keep Lookout & Wild Finale closed one more day, Tuesday 12/21 to finish snowmaking hopefully for the season on those runs. 

Be ready for a lot of Snow Report updates coming this week! And hug a snowmaker if see one…

Tornado Watch to Snowmaking

Just a few hours ago, we were in a Tornado Watch.  And now…we are making snow. Unbelievable. The snow and our base did take a little bit of a hit yesterday but it could have been much worse. Thankfully, we never lost power, we didn’t sustain any building or property damage, and we only had a couple of trees that fell when the storms and winds came through over night. 

We are making snow just about everywhere right now. Our snow cats have been on the hill today grooming and we will open today at 3pm, back to regular hours Friday am. 

Please be advised, there is a good chance that we will have some snow guns running, even on open runs over the next few days, including this weekend, while we are open for skiing. 

News coming soon on that new chairlift!

Cannon Valley Quad Load Test

Our team helped the Doppelmayr team complete a successful load test yesterday for our new chairlift. This is one of the most important items to check of the "New Chairlift To Do" list.

In these photos you will see big boxed containers that were filled with water in order to simulate the chairlift being fully loaded with skiers and snowboarders. 

  

Doppelmayr will be performing some additional final tests this week. Still not quite sure when the lift will open, stay tuned, that day is coming very, very soon. 

Cannon Valley Quad Chairs

If you Google 'Vancouver Port Flooding', you will soon learn why we were extremely happy to see the last remaining parts of our new quad chairlift this morning. 

The chairs themselves for our new chairlift were shipped from Thailand to the port of Vancouver.
They were then trapped there for weeks due to historic and even tragic flooding in the area. 

Last week, we were told the chairs left Vancouver via railway headed for Minneapolis.
Today, they arrived in Village. The Doppelmayr crew will attach the chairs very soon, load test the lift, and perform the final stage of this project.

Sorry, the lift will not be ready for this coming weekend but we are hoping/planning it will start carrying skiers & snowboarders later next week. 

Update also coming soon on additional runs and chairlifts that will be ready by Thursday pm. 

Visitor's Guide & Indoor chalet policies

If you haven't done so already, please read our updated Visitor's Guide before your visit to WelchVillage this season.  One important section to review is the updated Indoor Chalet Polices section. 

Guests can now use our indoor chalet space to boot up, we have expanded seating for dining, but the important part of this to note is that we have certain policies related to the personal items brought into the chalet.  

Towards the end of last season, we received an enormous amount of compliments and positive feedback from our guests related to table & seating use.  When certain restrictions were lifted late last season and we were allowed to add seating in our chalet, guests were able to use tables and chairs much more because bags, coolers, shoes, etc were not allowed to be left sitting on or under our tables. 

We are going to continue this moving forward in order to allow more of our passholders and guests to use our tables and seating space.  It's simple, we are just asking all of you to help us and share our limited table and seating space with others.  In fact, most MN ski areas have similar policies in place as well. 

We have added cubby space, hooks, and have a new day locker system coming soon to help. But again, these things are limited.  When they do fill up on peak visit periods, your personal items will need to be stored in your vehicle. 

Thank you in-advance for helping us in make the experience at Welch Village a positive one for as many guests as possible.  

Opening Plan

Our team has repositioned all of the portable snow guns and we are gearing up for another round of snowmaking weather that should begin overnight tonight and last until Friday morning sometime. Thursday looks to be our first 24+ period of snowmaking of the season so far. 

We will not be open this weekend.  We are looking at the end of next week & weekend to open things up for the season.  Again, we are using the same pre-season snowmaking & opening plan as last year.  When we open, we hope to offer as many chairlifts and the best early-season skiing/riding experience possible. We also want to be careful with the warm temps this weekend and next week.  If we wait to blade out and push around the piles, we will save more snow and offer a better experience next weekend. 

Right now, we are making snow on the terrain park area & rope tow, Heidi's Hollow, Fowl Play, Sweeny/ Jon Jon, Paul's Trail, Long Way Home, Lookout, and Bakkelykka.  We also have some tower guns running on Harley's Hollow on the east side but we are being careful not to impact the final stages of the new lift project.  We are hoping to start up more east side snowmaking during the cold snap after this one. 

A special thank you to the members of our team who will taking turns, working shifts, running our snowmaking operations on Thanksgiving day and evening.  When you take your first turns of 2021-22, think of them. 

From all of us at Welch Village, we hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving.  We give thanks for all of you, our employees, and the opportunity to provide you and your family with lasting winter memories again this coming season.  It's a joy to bring you another season at Welch Village. 

A nice cold evening in the Village

Technically this was the third evening of snowmaking but last night was our first REAL night of snow production. The low was about 12 degrees for a while early this morning and the winds finally calmed down which allowed our team to make some piles. These photos were taken around 2pm this afternoon. 

We know some ski areas are "opening".  We have decided to take the same approach to opening this year as we did last year.  That is...we will wait to open until we can give all of you a great experience with several great runs and multiple lifts. We want you to have a great experience on opening day and we simply need a few more good cold nights to accomplish that.  More terrain, longer runs, and more lifts on opening weekend requires a couple more evenings of good snowmaking conditions.  If we get more nights like last night, opening day will come sooner. 

The weather warms up again Tuesday and Wednesday before good snowmaking temps arrive again on Thanksgiving Day.  Right now, we are not too optimistic about being open this coming weekend.  But when we do open, the Village will be the place to be.  

More updates coming soon...

We are ready

Our snowmaking team is waiting and ready for snowmaking temperatures to arrive.  They have been testing the system, making repairs, and getting everything ready for the past several weeks.
All of the portable guns were placed on the hill the past few days and we are standing by.  It looks like a decent window of temps could arrive late Sunday evening and perhaps a couple of brief windows of opportunity could happen again next week. 

Stay tuned...

  

Splicing Day!

 A big item on the new chairlift construction list was checked off the list today.  A 6-person crew from Dopplemayr teamed up today with a Welch crew & led by Mountain Rope Service to splice the new haul rope on the Cannon Valley Quad.  Splicing the haul rope on any chairlift is always a cool experience.