You would be hard-pressed to find a speck of snow on the ground right now in London, Ont., as temperatures continue to hover at and above the freezing mark.
In the city’s Byron neighbourhood, however, the white stuff is in abundance, and despite a post-Christmas mild spell that has melted away snow everywhere else, the slopes at Boler Mountain have continued to operate, business as usual.
It was just over a month ago that officials at the west end resort unveiled a new positive temperature snowmaking unit, capable of producing snow in weather as warm as 20 C.
The new system is in part why London skiers and snowboarders have been able to continue hitting the hills amid a largely snowless January.
In a Facebook post Sunday, Boler Mountain officials reported that all 15 of the resort’s runs were open, along with tubing.
“The power of having one of the best snow making systems in Canada,” the post read.
“We lost the opportunity to ski down one of the trails yesterday and then overnight, we stayed in production with the new machine, and it was able to get that trail back open for people to ski down today,” said Marty Thody, director of operations at Boler Mountain, on Friday.
“It certainly is helping us through this challenging time, and our reinvestment in the snowmaking system year after year, and the dedication of our hard-working staff, is what has paid off for us.”
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Boler Mountain, Canada’s southernmost ski hill, officially opened for its 2022-23 season in mid-December.
The resort acquired the positive temperature snowmaking unit last year in a bid to open earlier and stay open longer, and to combat fluctuating temperatures and milder winters.
With a total install cost of just over $1 million, the unit was partially funded by the federal government’s Economic Development Agency.
“I’ve been doing this for 40 years and I can tell you that things are changing. We would never make snow until the temperature hit minus five when I first started years ago,” Thody said.
“Now, a big part of our production snow is made from -2 until -5 C. In the case of this year, almost all of our snowmaking was made from -2 to -6 C, and that’s what got us open, and that’s still what we’re skiing on today.”
Thody likened the production snow to coarse-ground coffee, “especially right now, now that the water’s run through it.”
“It just allows areas for water to run through without melting at all. What is really detrimental to a snowpack is warm and wind, and fortunately we’ve not had warm and wind. We’ve had cold and wind, but not warm and wind yet,” he said.
The short-term forecast for London shows highs above freezing through the week, with possible showers on Thursday and Friday.
More information can be found on Boler Mountain’s website.
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