Happy Fortune Friday, all!

Spring is in full effect, and I hope you have been able to get out and enjoy some of the nice warm spring skiing and riding! Honestly, when we were experiencing those never-ending storms in January, February, and March I wasn’t sure we would get a real spring, but here we are. Our original planned last day was scheduled to be this coming Sunday, April 16, but thanks to Mother Nature we are staying open an additional three weeks, so this is officially our ‘Not Closing Weekend’!

Extended Season Operational Plan - We have two days left in the regular season, and on Monday we will begin the extended season! This will look a little different than our regular season, but we are keeping as much terrain open as we can on both sides of the resort. The mountain will open at 9:00am every day of the week starting this Monday. We are prioritizing keeping Stagecoach open as long as possible this season. To make this happen, we’ll start operating the Gondola and Tamarack Express Friday – Sunday. Tamarack Lodge will close Monday – Thursday. Importantly, this won’t diminish the overall acreage we have open. Beginning Monday we will have Stagecoach, Dipper, and Comet open on the Nevada side, and California will feature the same great skiing and riding we have had for the past couple of weeks, with Gunbarrel, Groove, Powderbowl, and Sky or Canyon depending on wind conditions. Groove Terrain Park will remain open 7 days a week at this point and will stay open as long as there are enough people using the park to justify keeping it open. Additionally, beginner terrain remains open in California only with DMZ (until 4/24) and on Patsy’s and Maggie’s runs. In total, this is still 4,078 acres of terrain that is still accessible! As far as lodges and food and beverage go, we’ll have Stagecoach, East Peak, Sky Deck, Steins, and Cal Lodge operating, and will add Tamarack Lodge back Friday – Sunday. This plan will allow us to shift some F&B staff midweek and improve our menu offerings a bit. Some of this may change slightly and we’ll keep you informed on our update channels. There may be other changes to the extended season week to week based on weather, staffing, and visitation - we will update as often as needed.

We have a ton of fun coming up this weekend. The Heavenly Pond Skim, a crowd favorite, is returning this Sunday from 1pm - 3pm at the base of World Cup. If you have been in the California Main Lodge Parking Lot or have skied down World Cup recently, you have probably seen that our team has started work digging out the area for our pond. This event is always so fun – from hilarious attire and wipeouts to creative and successful attempts. There will be judges on hand to pick the winners in several categories and the weather looks perfect for it! Registration begins at 8:30am inside Cal Bar on the day of the event and will be capped at the first 100 participants so be sure to get there early. Plus, we’ll have live music at Cal Lodge for the event. We will also have live music on the Stagecoach deck on Saturday afternoon. The vibes should be awesome for our ‘Not Closing Weekend’.

Finally, I wanted to address some of the disappointment in our late season ramp down when we closed Boulder Lodge and Boulder + North Bowl lifts for the season on April 4. While this was our plan all year and aligns with when we have closed this part of the resort for the past decade or so, we should have publicized this plan earlier when we announced our season extension to prevent confusion. We would have loved to keep North Bowl Express open longer, but we couldn’t this spring because we needed to tighten up the haul rope after the “first year stretch”, which is standard. I mentioned in the last post that we would be rotating some lifts based on conditions and adding lifts on the weekends, which we have done with Mott Canyon, Canyon Express, Comet, and Olympic.

It’s been a wild winter and long ski season for sure. Winding it down is always bittersweet and we do try and keep all our stakeholders in mind when we make the decisions to close or reduce operations based on staffing and visitation levels. I hope these last 3 + weeks bring great spring snow and that you all have a fun and special end to the season.

See you on the slopes,

Tom