It’s been an unusual winter for ski resorts throughout the province.
Lack of snow hindered many resorts from opening on time. Then, a recent extreme cold front forced some to either shut down or to close some lifts and runs.
Now, early spring-like temperatures are the latest challenge that ski resorts are facing.
As of Tuesday, 82 of 132 runs are open at SilverStar Mountain Resort near Vernon, along with nine of 10 lifts.
“Yeah, it was definitely a slow start,” said Ian Jenkins of SilverStar Mountain Resort.
“We have quite a lot of steep terrain, double-black diamonds, so we’ve closed those for safety precautions and we’re gonna keep monitoring those to see how it goes just for snow safety.”
Normally, in late January, all lifts and runs are open.
“It’s very spring-like, indeed,” said skier Dominic Hughes, who drove six hours to visit the Okanagan.
“As a matter of fact, down low (on the ski hill) it’s not good at all for my type of skis. I haven’t got the right wax on them, so I’m actually sticking to the snow down low.”
Freezing rain at Big White Ski Resort on Sunday meant two chair lifts had to be closed due to ice.
Warm temperatures also forced the closure of some runs at Apex Mountain Resort near Penticton. As of Tuesday, three of four lifts were open and 60 of 80 runs.
“We had one run, in particular, that’s a main kind of feeder run and it really was getting impacted by the weather,” resort general manager James Shalman told Global News.
“So we thought in order to save it for our weekend crowd, we would shut it down. And, actually, we had to shut down the Wildside as well, which is another kind of bigger area of the resort.”
The weather has been so warm at Apex that the resort is now losing some of its snow base.
“We’ve lost about 15 centimetres,” said Shalman. “We were at 130 and were now at that 115 mark.”
In Kelowna, Tuesday’s forecast was calling for cloudy skies plus a high of 8 C and an overnight low of 3 C. The normal temperatures for late January are -1 C and -7 C.
The forecast is expected to stay the same until Friday, with the weekend seeing a slight dip to a high of 3 C.
The upcoming forecast for the next two weeks is still above normal, though the latter half of February could see seasonal temperatures.
“February and March, the outlook looks fantastic,” said Shalman. “So lots of skiing to go yet, still two full months and looking forward to much better snow conditions coming up.”
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