Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Skiers ride a ski lift at Big Powderhorn Mountain in Ironwood Township on Thursday, one of the ski hill's last days of operation for the season. A lack of seasonal snow and warmer than usual temperatures caused the ski hill to close Sunday. Many other ski hills in the area have also closed.
By P.J. GLISSON
In what has been called a no-snow or low-snow winter, area ski hills are ending a short season early.
In Wisconsin, Whitecap Mountains Resort in Upson closed on March 1.
In Gogebic County, Big Powderhorn Mountain Resort and Mt. Zion Ski Hill closed on Sunday. The latter is on the campus of Gogebic Community College.
In Ontonagon County, the Porcupine Mountains Ski Area and Adventure Mountain - due to their reliance only on natural snow - have each been open only a handful of days throughout the meager season that now features more grass than snow.
Only Snowriver Mountain Resort, with neighboring hills in Gogebic's Wakefield and Bessemer townships, is still open, thanks to snow-making and overnight temperatures that dip below freezing. But even its trail and snow report warns people to check that website page before traveling to the resort.
Big Powderhorn Mountain Resort in Ironwood Township is a good representative of this season's challenges.
A month ago, at the height of winter, the hills looked like a winter wonderland even if outlying roads and fields did not.
"That's what 40 million gallons of water will do," said Bruce Noren, general manager, while referring to aggressive snow-making.
"This season, we purchased more snow guns," he added. "This is a good year to do it - we needed every one."
Powderhorn also now has three state-of-the-art grooming machines, and Noren said that skiers appreciated the overall effects.
Even so, at that time, he said that only about 15 of the resort's 45 runs were open, and he warned that the numbers changed daily amidst the more than 250 skiable acres.
Helping the resort, however, were a number of events this year that drew people to the site.
They included the annual Midwest Telefest, along with the annual Cat Clowder, the U.P. Finals ski meet, a National Ski Patrol Senior Trainer event, and holiday celebrations.
The Telefest normally takes place at the Porcupine Mountains Ski Area in Ontonagon, but a lack of powder there required a change in venue for this year.
At the Ski Patrol training event, Wisconsin residents Evan and Karna Sandock, who normally patrol at another site, were among participants. They practiced responses to hypothetical accidents and learned more about triaging and other facets of emergency care.
Noren said that Powderhorn also supports members of this area's Team Z. "We're the training hill for the high school skiing team," he said.
Noren concluded by saying he hopes that this year's season was a "fluke."
Meanwhile, Snowriver Mountain Resort has announced that it hopes to hold out until April. In its March 4 snow report, it listed 4 inches of snow in the previous week, a season total of 46 inches, and a base of 6-36 inches.
According to the National Weather Service readings at the Gogebic-Iron Wastewater Treatment Facility in Ironwood, 39.6 inches of snow has fallen here this season as of Wednesday, well below the 153.5-inch average for the date.
