Sask. ski hills coping with 'the weirdest temperatures' this year

With school out for the holidays, many students are looking to fill their days.

Normally, some would be heading out for a ski on one of the hills across the province, but the lack of precipitation means operators are relying on snowmaking equipment to open on a limited basis.

At Optimist Hill in Saskatoon, they’ve been able to get a decent base established. It’s not as thick as other years, but general manager Maxine Tebbe says they’re taking it all in stride.

“This is by far the weirdest temperatures we’ve had out here,” Tebbe told CTV News.

They’re two weeks behind their usual opening date, but with the snowmaking machines they have, they are able to make snow in warmer temperatures.

“We can make snow in the -5 and -7 but I know there were a few days where it was around that zero mark and we were having to push it to have to get snow made,” she says.

They have three out of five tubing runs open as well.

At Wapiti, near Melfort, they also have most runs operating after a delay.

Eileen Shaw has been the manager out there for three years and has worked at the hill for almost 40 years. Her crew couldn’t have predicted these unseasonably warm conditions.

“We’re surprised for sure. We never expected it to carry on this far. There isn’t much we can do about it, and you hope it improves and we’ll carry on from here,” Shaw told CTV News.

That ski area has two runs open at the top, Mickey Mouse and Show Off, and the bunny hill and terrain park are also operational.

According to Shaw, all runs would normally be open at this time of year, and they’d be in the midst of a busy Christmas season, which isn’t the case currently.

At Mission Ridge in Fort Qu’Appelle, they’ve also been making snow. They started slightly behind schedule, but now have a good portion of their runs open.

Crews are having a rough go at Table Mountain near North Battleford.

They’ve tried to make snow but had to stop because of the warm conditions and their website says they don’t know when they’ll open.

Timber Ridge near Big River is open as well as Duck Mountain on the eastern edge of the province.

Some snow boarders who were out at Optimist have mixed feelings about the warm conditions.

Josh Nickel is a Saskatoon snowboarder who likes warm conditions for the most part but wishes he wouldn’t have worn such warm clothing to Optimist Hill when the temperature was +1 on Wednesday.

“I wore too many layers. I don’t mind the icy conditions. It’s a different feeling from snowboarding on actual powder,” Nickel said.

His snowboarding cohort, Mason Dvork-Ranka disagrees.

“I prefer colder, much colder because I can wear more layers and I don’t have to take it all off and worry about putting it inside,” he said.

At Optimist Hill, they remain optimistic and hope they can recoup some the revenue losses they’ve endured so far.

“We are a small hill, so this week and next week will definitely make or break us. If we had super cold temperatures, these two weeks the season will not end well,” Tebbe said.