Mt. Zion opens for the season

By CHARITY SMITH

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Ironwood — Mt. Zion opened for the season on Monday after a brief delay due to a lack of snow.

“It went pretty good actually. It went as expected,” said Jim Vanderspoel, director of Gogebic Community College’s Ski Area Management program and operations at the hill located on the Ironwood campus. “It was a good opening day, we sold a lot of passes, but as far as numbers it was pretty average.”

Vanderspoel said Mt. Zion normally sees between 100 to 115 people on opening day, but this year they only had about 75% of that. He attributed part of the decline to the lack of the Team Z kids ski club’s Christmas camp, which was moved to Blackjack Mountain in Bessemer Township.

“We had to make the decision last week and a week ago — until we got that snow Christmas Eve — It didn’t look like we were going to make opening,” he said.

Vanderspoel said they had hoped to open earlier, but couldn’t make the decision until after the region received significant snow on Dec. 24 and 25.

He said there have been a great deal of modifications to the way things are handled at Mt. Zion this season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including ticket sales and dinning have been brought outside.

“This has been a tough year with the whole COVID thing,” he said. “We’ve been trying to follow the governor’s executive orders.”

Mt. Zion guests can purchase food inside, but they must go outside to eat. Vanderspoel said they have a warming tent set up outside where people can go to eat their food, but only 12 people can be in the tent at a time. The tent is 20 by 40 feet, and is heated with patio heaters. The tent will remain in place at least through Jan. 15, he said, because the order states that they can serve food, but people are not able to eat indoors at least until that date.

Mt. Zion is open Thursdays from 3 p.m .to 7 p.m., Fridays 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., Saturdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sundays noon to 4 p.m. All hours are weather dependent.