Merry (White) Christmas from our family to yours

My oldest daughter and I continued our tradition and spent Christmas Eve today lapping our snow filled runs at Welch Village. We skied all 20+ runs but then lapped our favorites Bakkelyka, Lookout, and Sweeny multiple times each.  Believe it or not, even though we have experienced record warmth this November and December, we are historically close to the amount of runs and lifts that we would typically have open for this time of the year. 

Credit for that goes to the passion and hard work of our snowmaking crew, grooming crew, and our entire team here in the Village. Credit also has to be given to the dedication & continued investment in snowmaking capital & infrastructure which will enable us to offer a "White Christmas" to all of you. 

Last year…in September, when 10 brand new Techno Alpin snow gun towers became available, I visited Grandpa Leigh up has his home and showed him the brochure, related information, and specs for these impressive machines.  I told him that I was considering buying a few of them.  He immediately told me, "Peter...buy all ten of them. Do you have the money to buy all ten right now?"  I replied, "Probably".  Then he said, "One day, there will be a winter, a challenging winter, when you will be very happy that you had purchased all ten of these snow guns.  Just do it."  That winter turned out to be this winter. 

Snowmaking was Leigh Nelson's true passion.  He loved to ski yes.  But he loved making snow and yes...buying modern snowmaking equipment.  He was right.  Those 10 guns made difference this year as did all of our recent snowmaking investments.  

We will persevere through the rain over Christmas and we will have slopes and lifts of great skiing and riding that you can enjoy during the holiday week and well beyond. 

 Merry Christmas from our family to yours! 

    

First "real" snowmaking night!

Last night was our first real snowmaking night of the season.  Our crew fully tested our system and did make some snow. Conditions were not perfect but the guns were running for about 12 hours.  It's challenging and a slow process to make sure right now with mid-20 temps, warm ground, warm river water etc.  However, last night was a big step in the right direction with some better nights of snowmaking in the forecast, the Village is going to turn very white...very soon.  

We will not be open this weekend.  Right now, our hope and plan is to open late next week or weekend.  It's still way too early to give any more specific information than that because it all depends on the weather.  

From all of us at Welch Village, have a Happy Thanksgiving.  We are thankful for colder weather, our awesome employees (especially our snowmakers), and for all of you who make the Village the best place to spend winter.  It won't be long now...winter is almost here. 

 

Summer Improvements Update

It's already August and it's time to start telling you about all the improvements and projects that our team has been hard at work on this spring & summer as well as what is still planned for the remainder of the summer and fall.  

The largest project for this summer has been our new Ski Patrol building. This is a building that I hope none of you ever have to visit obviously :)  However, injuries are a part of our sport and if the situation does occur where you have to visit our Ski Patrol, you can rest assured that you will be taken care of inside a state of the art building.  We are biased of course, but we already know that we have the best patrol staff in the region.  Now our patrol will have new & improved facility to go along with their expertise. 

This building will be multifaceted in that it will feature a large garage and canopy on the northern end which will allow patrol and our operations team to store things like fencing, tower pads, bamboo, signage and other important items more efficiently during the season and during off-season months. The new patrol building will be significantly larger than our old building and is being built in the same location. 

Other projects happening this summer include: 

-First phase of a Jaxx remodel project.  We will have more details for you soon but we are replacing the kitchen, updating the kitchen equipment, remodeling the food service ordering area, replacing exterior siding & doors & more.  Stay tuned for more updates and pictures. 

-Brand new Piston Bully 400 Snowcat which should arrive any day now! 

- Chairlift and snowmaking maintenance work which is ongoing every summer. 

Stay tuned more more updates coming soon!  

Mid-February Snowmaking

We turned on all of the tower snow guns last night and we also made snow last week as well.  One of the advantages of investing in additional tower guns like we did this past year is making snow during times like this.  Yes, the power and efficiency of tower guns helps make more snow in the fall and open runs earlier in November & December.  However, after rain events like we experienced this past week, it's pretty efficient for our team to turn on the snowmaking system with more fixed tower guns rather than placing portable guns.  We did add a couple of the portable guns in key locations last night too, but most, if not all of the tower guns we have around the resort were running most of the night last night and into this morning.  

Our grooming team is out now grooming in the fresh snow and we are planning to have great snow conditions heading into this President's holiday weekend.  Don't let the spring-like weather from this past week fool you into thinking that winter is coming to and end.  We still have a deep base of snow and we plan to have the Village open with great skiing & riding for several more weeks.  February and March are probably the best months to get out and enjoy the Village. 

 

Triple Chair & Back Bowl Update

We are still waiting for the restraining bars for the Triple Chair.  At this point, we have to assume that the new restraining bars may not arrive this season due to continued supply chain and related issues or least arrive later this winter.  It was our hope to run the Triple Chair with restraining bars this season but that may not be the case for at least a little while yet.  Our lift team still needs a few more days to complete some final maintenance tasks on the lift and get it ready.  Unfortunately, it won't be ready this weekend.  

We are confident that we can have the chairlift ready, without restraining bars, in time to open starting Friday, January 13th, that is our goal.  That would also mean that the Back Bowl would also open the same day.  We have been making snow back there for weeks now and plan to make more snow later this week. We still need a few days to finish snowmaking & grooming to get the runs ready.  

Thank you for your patience on this, we are excited to get the Back Bowl open, hopefully, on January 13th.  If there are any further updates we will let you know. 

**We are also still in need of more lift operators.  If you know of anyone who would like a fun, part-time job this winter, please point them in our direction**