The escalated quickly

As I type this on Tuesday afternoon, I am watching the snow whales grow & grow in size.  And as I type this, our crew, who has been already working around the clock since snowmaking temps arrived, are starting to turn some guns off and begin pushing huge piles of snow around.  This takes time.  I know all of you are excited for us to open more runs, but this takes time...especially when the temps drop, the air dries, and we make this much snow. We will have more information soon but as of now, I would anticipate adding a run like Nanny's Knob this Thursday as well as much wider versions of Sweeny/Jon Jon, Fowl Play, and Paula's Party (new large beginner ballroom hill).  By Friday at noon, we are hoping to have Lookout and Wild Finale open as well as possibly Long Way Home & Paul's Trail.  There should be more terrain & lifts coming by Saturday am, but again...this process is slow and we are working as hard as we can.  Park features will be accessed by chairlift for one more week as blast a season's worth of park snow in the new park area. Weather and temps can change quickly so we want to stack up as much snow as possible during this cold snap that we have been blessed with. This should be an awesome December. 

Annual Reminder:  Please.  Please obey all markings, closure ropes, Closed signs, and Caution signs.  Please respect safety and our policies at Welch Village.  There will not be warnings if you are skiing/riding in closed areas.  You will be taking this season off at Welch Village and maybe more seasons.  Thank you for being smart and respectful.  

Happy Thanksgiving Snowmaking Update 2025

Happy Thanksgiving from our family & entire WV team to you! 

I just did a walking tour of our snowmaking operations and things are starting to change in the Village, in a good way.  There are challenges every year during early season snowmaking operations.  The river water is warm because of the warm fall weather.  There are leaks in the snowmaking pipes that slow things down.  And we sometimes blow electric transformers like we did last night.  Huge shoutout to the crew from Dakota Electric who locked in and installed a new one last night for us. 

With our new chairlift, we decided to modify our opening weekend snowmaking push a bit.  We are also able to adjust to this new strategy because of our investment in tower guns over the past few seasons and adding water capacity with a new pump.  We decided to use the majority of our 33 portable guns on the areas we want to open first.  These are additional guns to the many tower guns that are already on these slopes.  Runs like Lookout, Wild Finale, Sweeny, Fowl Play, Paula's Party/Heidi's Hollow (new beginner slope area) are getting absolutely buried right now!  We also have all tower guns going as well on key areas like Harley's Hollow, Dan's Dive, Bakkelyka and more. 

As always, are goal is to open for you with as quality of a skiing & riding experience as possible.  And yes, we will allow our valued season passholders first chance to hit the slopes first on opening day.  An opening day that will likely feature THREE quad chairlifts (at least)!  

Stay tuned as we will have an opening update sometime tomorrow or early Saturday.  The next 7-10 days look very cold and we are thankful for this cold snap and the exciting snowmaking ahead. 

We are also thankful for all of our employees and for all of you that make this place so special.  Again, Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours and it might be a good idea to start getting your gear ready, opening day is not far away. 

Lots of snow. Make good choices.

Sorry to sound like the parent, but this my annual plea for all of passholders and guests to please make good choices, read & follow our signage, and follow our simple policy of staying off closed runs & closed areas until our team has time to push around all of this awesome snow we have made with the recent cold weather.  We take safety very seriously here and our patrol and staff will take your lift ticket and possibly your pass privileges for a period of time if they see you in closed areas.  We have a zero tolerance policy for those who think that simple rules don't apply to them. Thank you for being patient while we continue to open more terrain.  Keep watching our social media and snow report as more runs will be opening consistently now over the next several days.  Thank you to our employees for being the best of the best and getting more of the Village open for all of us to enjoy. 

 

Next steps to open more of the Village

We were blessed again last night and this morning with near perfect early season snowmaking conditions. Temps in the teens, very low humidity, and a light NW breeze.  The water in the Cannon River is also getting colder and that directly affects how much snow we can make.  The colder the water, the better.  And it's starting to really show.  The start of this season is very different to the start of last season.  See pics below taken this morning.  

Opening weekend was a bit chaotic.  We had some snowmaking pump issues early last week and then we had some Piston Bulley Snow Cat issues Saturday morning.  There are always challenges like this at the start of the season but our team always finds a way to persevere and figure it out.  Kudos to them and all of our employees who were able to open up the Village this weekend for the start of our 60th season. 

We will need to shut down snowmaking because of a couple warmer periods this week and this coming weekend.  However, there are still some cold nights and days in the forecast and our crew will continue to take advantage of that.  Our grooming team will also need some time to push all of this snow around in order to open more terrain. 

The plan right now is for Lookout to open tomorrow.  Runs like Coulee, Nanny's Nob, Triple R are coming later in the week.  We will also be working on Harley's Hollow & Dan's Dive.  Most of these runs should be ready by Friday. Stay tuned and keep watching the Snow Report on our website. 

Thank you to all of you who joined us this weekend especially all of our passholders who enjoyed our traditional passholders only day on opening day.  More info to come, winter is here. 

   

 

The Village took a beating. But we still here!

This latest round of 2023-2024 El Nino winter weather absurdity this past weekend almost knocked us out. It especially almost knocked out the east side and the Back Bowl.  Almost. 

You will want to check Snow Report at welchvillage.com regularly this week to stay updated on what will and what won't be open this week, later this week, and into this weekend. Our grooming crew will be out again today and tonight moving snow around and patching up the place.  It's one thing to experience 40 degrees, 50 degrees, and even 60's in March.  We have never experienced a weekend of low 70's combined with 30-40 mph wind gusts the first week of March. 

Here is our very tentative plan for this week.  

- We will be open for spring hours again starting tomorrow, Wednesday, 10am-6pm. At this point, we plan to be open 10am-6pm daily through this Sunday.  Beyond is TBD. 

- Only the west slopes will be open this week through at least Thursday.  East side slopes, including Jaxx, will be closed until at least Friday. At this point, we are planning to have east side & Jaxx open this Friday. Again, stay tuned for updates on this.  Our team needs significant time to get the east side patched up.   

- There will be a few areas & runs even on the east & west side that are closed for the season.  Please respect our CLOSED signage.  

- We are hoping to have some/most of the Back Bowl available for one more weekend this Saturday & Sunday only. With the weather we have been dealt this year, we are pretty happy to be able to offer Back Bowl skiing for one final Saturday & Sunday.  

- Pond Skip update. Last weekend's warmth eliminated the snow base required for a pond skip on the east side.  However, we are looking into having a pond skip event of some sort near the bottom of Lookout or somewhere in that vicinity on the west side.  Date, time, location etc is TBD at this point. Stay tuned. 

We have now been open for skiing & snowboarding for over 90 days this season.  90+ days during an historically warm winter.  Thank you to all of you who understand the work it takes every year to make snow, open runs, open lifts, and operate a place like the Village.  And thank you to all of you who keep coming every week this winter and enjoy the the slopes and all of the snow that we still have to offer.  

Still pushing lots of snow

Like I said in my previous message, we literally made more snow in the last few days than the previous two months. And…the temps have still been cold which means our grooming crew needs to take a little more time pushing the snow. 

Heading into this weekend, here’s a couple highlights: 

- Chicken should be open Sunday

- Pete’s Pike should be open Saturday 

- Ski Bob open Saturday 

- Sunrise Triple open Sunday with 1-2 runs

Again, please respect our CLOSED areas and please respect the abundant CAUTION signage around the resort. See you on the hill!

More snow in 5 days than the last two months

We just made more snow in the last five days than we did in the last two months.  That's how efficient & productive snowmaking can be with the right weather conditions. 

Today was a productive day for our team being closed and being able to make snow, push piles, move guns, and do a bunch of work that isn't possible while we are open.  Thank you again for your patience in our closing today and late start tomorrow. 

We have made a ton of snow and will continue to make snow over the next few days. However, please be patient with our team as they move this snow, move more guns, and take the necessary steps to open more runs & areas.  This will take some time with this much snow.  

A couple of news items: 

- Runs like Pete's Pike, Chicken, Ski Bob, Lift Face and a couple others will open hopefully by Friday. 
- We are hoping to re-open the magic carpet beginner areas by Thursday, closed tomorrow (Wed)
- Big terrain park rebuild will happen most likely early next week. 
- Hoping to open a couple of runs and and the #5 Sunrise Triple by this Sunday
- The Back Bowl will not be open this weekend.  We have more snow to make back there and an unbelievable amount of snow to push and move around.  At this point, we are targeting to open the Back Bowl Friday of next week. Stay tuned. 

*We are also busy making snow in a lot of areas and on runs that we have already been open but are in need of added width and base.  That is happening virtually everywhere. 

Again...please be respectful of our policies to stay out of closed areas for safety concerns as our team is hard at work opening additional terrain.  Keep watching social media and our Snow Report for further updates. 

A few pics from today: