With daylight hours getting longer now, ski hills in the Okanagan have lengthened their operating hours.
On Friday, Big White Ski Resort extended the time that two of its 16 lifts operate, while SilverStar Mountain Resort announced that it will stay open for a week longer.
At Big White, the Black Forest and Ridge Rocket chairlifts will now run until 4 p.m., an increase of 30 minutes from their earlier closure time of 3:30 p.m.
At SilverStar, the resort’s last day of the season will be April 16 – thanks to this season’s heavy snowfall totals.
As of March 2, it had received almost 670 cm of snow. That’s 30 cm shy of its annual average snowfall, and there are still six weeks remaining.
“Seeing as we still have well over a month left in our winter season, 670 cm is well over what we would normally see by this time of year, and we anticipate breaking 700 cm long before our scheduled end-of-season date,” said Ian Jenkins, SilverStar’s director of sales and marketing.
Jenkins added, “in the past 10 years, we’ve only had one other season comparable to this one.”
As of Saturday, SilverStar had no new overnight snow, but did have seven centimetres of fresh powder in the past 48 hours and 64 cm over the past week. Overall, the resort has seen 673 cm of cumulative snow, and has a current base depth of 252 cm.
“Over the past couple weeks we have been having powder day after powder day,” Jenkins said. “It feels like the snow just keeps coming, and we are loving it.”
At Big White, the resort is reporting one centimetre of fresh snow, a cumulative snowfall total of 644 cm and a base of 263 cm. The resort’s closing day is set for Monday, April 10.
In the South Okanagan, Apex Mountain Resort near Penticton is tentatively scheduled to close on Sunday, April 2.
The resort is reporting three centimetres of new snow in the past 12 hours, a base of 232 cm, and a cumulative snowfall total of 529 cm.
In related news, a ski hill in Southern California is seeing record-level snowfall totals.
Located around 160 km from Los Angeles, Big Bear Mountain Resort says it’s received 134 inches of snow — that’s 11 feet, or 3.4 metres — during the past week.
But if you’re thinking of quickly jetting out to Big Bear, good luck getting there, as it’s snowed in.
Due to the recent storms that battered the area, a state of emergency has been declared for the San Bernardino mountains. All roads to and from Big Bear Mountain Resort are closed, and there is no estimated time of reopening.
On its website, the resort said “we highly recommend postponing booking or making travel plans to the mountains until the roads have been properly cleared and local agencies have verified they are safe for public travel.”
However, the resort is open, and a webcam showed beautiful conditions and blue skies on Saturday.
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