TRAVERSE CITY — A warm fall might have you feeling like winter will never come, but ski hills are already getting ready for the cold.
One Traverse City resort said they’re looking forward to very snowy hills this year after making some big improvements during the offseason.
“Last year it was fits and starts. We get the tube run open, we get our double toe, which is like our bunny hill, and then it would melt,” said James Pearson, Mt. Holiday executive director. “I was taking snow from snow banks in the parking lot and putting them in trashcans to try and get our harness program– to keep it open.”
With the help of donors, Mt. Holiday was able to refurbish or purchase more than a dozen new snow guns. They came with upgrades including a new piping system to keep up with the demand.
“It’s game changing,” said Pearson. “we had to make those improvements to keep up with the bigger bigger resorts.”
The Holiday race team and Kiwanis Ski Club also use their hills, so it’s important that they’re able to stay on the slopes even if mother nature isn’t cooperating.
They were also able to replace one pump putting out 375-475 gallons of water per minute with two pumps putting out 800 gallons of water per minute.
“Our biggest challenge is we just didn’t have the fleet of modern guns to put down a lot of snow at one time. So when we get a cold snap in, say, late December, before we would have to pick and choose where we put guns. Now I can run effectively a whole fleet at one time, so I can cover more surface area and I can put down a lot a lot more snow at once,” said Pearson.
After replacing their blue chairlift last year and now the snow guns, Mt. Holiday said the next step is to paint the clubhouse and more improvements come next spring.