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.