Season on ice
Warm weather keeping Ski Cape Smokey from launching its 2018 season
Ever changing weather conditions have wreaked havoc on potential opening dates for the 2018 season at Ski Cape Smokey.
It’s been a winter featuring many bouts of snow that have briefly covered the scenic winter destination but that snow has been frequently followed by driving rain and warm weather conditions.
The result to date has left Smokey unsuitable for skiing.
“The night before last there was some really heavy, wet snow falling but even that’s all gone now,” said Larry Dauphinee, one of the facility’s community volunteers.
“I’ve haven’t seen a winter like this in a long time.”
Previous seasons have showed the volunteers who run the hill that about 50-60 cm of snow is required before the hill is able to welcome skiing visitors.
A quick check of the next week of weather forecasts isn’t giving Dauphinee much optimism about getting those required ski conditions being met, anytime soon. Periods of rain are on the way on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, for example.
Even the Farmer’s Almanac is offering a bad news outlook for those looking to take to the slopes at Smokey at this time of year.
“What we need is two to three really good snowstorms to give us a really good base of snow.”
The 2018 season — when it starts — will mark the seventh consecutive year of skiing at Ski Cape Smokey since it was reopened by community volunteers. For the most part each of those previous six seasons has seen a start date in the middle of January or early into February.
“We had a winter like this two years ago and were only open for four days.”
Still, the mood among volunteers and community members is that it doesn’t matter when the Smokey opens this year, just as long as it opens.
“A lot of kids received equipment for Christmas and are anxious to use it,” Dauphinee said.
If an opening in the next few weeks is not in the forecast, he’s hoping that the season can at least be saved during March Break, which has always been their busiest time of the year at Ski Cape Smokey.