Starting next week, Londoners will be able to hit the slopes of Boler Mountain again for the first time since the pandemic started.
Boler Mountain officials announced this week that the ski and snowboard hill will reopen to the public on Feb. 16, the same day the London-Middlesex region is set to leave the province’s stay-at-home order and return to the colour-coded restrictions framework.
The facility had been set to kick off its 2020-21 winter season on Dec. 23, but was forced to put those plans on pause after the province implemented a four-week provincewide lockdown on Boxing Day to curb the spread of the coronavirus, shutting down ski and snowboard hills across Ontario.
The shutdown forced Boler Mountain to furlough and lay off roughly 350 people on Christmas Eve, said manager Marty Thody.
“We continued to make snow, we continued to farm the snow, groom and take care of the snow as we were moving along, in hopes that we would open. But there were some dark days for sure,” Thody said Tuesday during an interview on 980 CFPL’s London Live with Mike Stubbs.
“We were down to only two paid staff at one time and our managers were all laid off.”
In a statement released in late December, the Ontario Snow Resorts Association said Ontario was the only jurisdiction in all of North America to close ski and snowboard hills as a result of COVID-19.
Last month, Premier Doug Ford said he didn’t want to see people in hot zones travelling to ski hills elsewhere to “get away, stay in a hotel, have some meals and so on.”
Boler Mountain and other hills were dealt another blow last month after the province declared a state of emergency and issued a stay-at-home order, which mandated Ontarians to stay home except for essential reasons.
Citing the ongoing challenges and uncertain upcoming weather, Boler Mountain effectively scrapped its 2020-21 season in late January, cancelling season passes and advising those who had purchased a pass or signed up for group lessons that full refunds would be given, according to a CBC News report.
Two weeks later and Boler Mountain’s prospects are looking up. With ski hills on the verge of being allowed to operate again, Thody and the remaining staff at Boler Mountain are now gearing up for a delayed season that didn’t even appear in the cards a few days ago.
“We still didn’t know yesterday until the last minute when the premier said that skiing would be allowed,” Thody said, adding that officials with the mountain have been in talks with the province over the last month.
“In that month, we kept working with the (minister of heritage, sport tourism and culture industries) and trying to get this industry back up and running… We had an afternoon meeting with the (minister) to lay out some of the parameters that we had gone over in the previous weeks to get us to open.”
Thody says management is still trying to determine how many staff members who were let go at the end of last year are able to come back and stay for the remainder of the shortened season. Some have since found other employment.
In addition, it remains to be seen how long it will take for the hill to bounce back from the financial wallop dealt by the pandemic and the lockdown.
“The plug’s been put in the boat, but we’re still bailing it out. It’ll be challenging to recover some of the costs that we’ve lost,” Thody said.
Tickets will be made available for purchase four days in advance at 10 a.m. via Boler Mountain’s website and app. Tickets will be in four-hour increments, with times starting at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., Thody said.
Season passes and group lessons remain cancelled. Rentals and tube tickets must also be purchased online in advance, and private lessons will be available in the future.
“We’re going to start easy so that we get our systems set, and if we have to make adjustments, we’ll make those before we start putting the numbers up to where we think it will be comfortable for us to operate, given the restrictions,” he said.
More information can be found on Boler Mountain’s website.
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