(already subscribe? log in).

Ski areas welcome snow for holiday weekend

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

January 13, 2012|By Katie Johnston

A skier traversed a trail yesterday at Mad River Glen in Waitsfield, Vt.,… (Corey Hendrickson for The…)

After a warm, dry start to the season, snow is finally starting to pile up in the mountains, and not a moment too soon for New England ski areas looking to capitalize on the long holiday weekend.

Mad River Glen in Waitsfield, Vt., has been open only sporadically since New Year’s weekend due to rain and warm weather. But with about a foot of new snow during the past few days, the ski area expects to have all its trails open this weekend.

“Being that we didn’t get Christmas, it’s just important that we get this holiday in,’’ said marketing director Eric Friedman, who estimates that a strong Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend could generate as much as 15 percent of the ski area’s revenue for the year.

So far this winter, temperatures have been about 5 degrees above normal and snowfall totals about half what they normally are, according to AccuWeather. But, much to the dismay of nonskiers, the mild weather may finally be over; temperatures are forecast to hover in the single digits in the mountains today.

“The pattern’s starting to change,’’ said Tom Kines, a meteorologist at AccuWeather. “What that means is more prolonged periods of colder weather across the Northeast.’’

About 60 percent of Vermont’s ski trails were open yesterday, and about three-quarters are expected to be open this weekend - getting resorts almost back to where they should be at this time of year. At Christmas, less than a quarter of Vermont’s ski trails were open.

“Winter finally arrived about a week and a half ago,’’ said Dave Meeker of Mount Snow in West Dover, Vt.

In New Hampshire, nearly 60 percent of the state’s trails have enough snow to ski, down from 85 percent a year ago, but many more are expected to be open by the weekend.

Colder temperatures this week also helped snow making.

“We’ve been going nonstop,’’ said Greg Keeler of Cannon Mountain in Franconia, N.H., - making snow 24 hours a day for a week straight. Cannon is nowhere near having all its trails open, as it did a year ago, but 10 new runs opened in the past few days, and half the terrain is expected to be skiable this weekend.

The falling snow on Thursday and yesterday was a welcome sight at Sugarloaf Mountain Resort in western Maine, where more than a third of the ski area’s 150 trails were open yesterday, with additional runs expected to be ready for the weekend.

“We’re ecstatic,’’ said communications manager Ethan Austin. “It’s a very important weekend for us, and given that we were somewhat slow over Christmas vacation week, we’re hoping to make up a little bit of ground.’’

Those sentiments were echoed across ski country as flakes continued to fall into the three-day weekend.

“Everybody here is doing their snow dance,’’ said Jason Gibbs, marketing director at the trade association Ski Vermont. “It’s not pretty, but it works.’’