Welcome 2024
Happy New Year! A huge thank you to everyone who came out to enjoy the festivities with us at Black River Basin. The torchlight parade was one of the largest I've seen with over 30 skiers shedding their red light across Sailor's Delight. The mist of the snowguns reflected the light, illuminating the whole hill as they snaked across. Truly an awesome sight to see. It was a night to remember, filled with friends, family, and a whole lot of fun.
I'm thrilled to see the weather changing as we welcome the new year and look forward to sharing powder turns with you soon! With a warm and ice-free lake, I've read that the lake effect snow machine should kick into gear sometime in mid-January. Get ready to Powder U.P.! In the meantime, our skilled snowmakers are firing on all cylinders to build a solid base for the powder to fall on and the skiing has been great. I'm a sucker for warm blue ski days spent sliding with friends. Don't miss your chance to enjoy warm January Skiing!
- Benjamin, GM
Snowguns: Now Firing
As you can see, the snowmaking forecast is shaping up in our favor. The next 48 hours are looking optimal for making snow with consistent temperatures below 20 degrees, perfect for opening up the guns and stacking piles. By the start of this weekend, I expect to have as much terrain open as we did before the Christmas rains of 2023. With 2023 behind us, I'm excited to be looking ahead at expanding our open terrain with as much terrain as possible. Read on below to learn more about our specific plans to get 110 acres and 75% of our snowmaking terrain open by MLK weekend. This would give us the most open terrain in the Upper Peninsula. The race is on ON!
Summit Snowmaking Update
Last night our snowmaking team migrated the snowguns off of Superior and Lower Voyageur's Highway onto Borealis. With the trail fully loaded, I expect to finish off the campaign on that trail by the end of the day on Friday when temperatures begin to climb up a bit. We're also working to reopen the Sugar Hills Learning Area and Maple to provide a quality learning experience again before this weekend.
The slight increase in temperatures on Friday afternoon will allow our team a nice opportunity to pull their equipment off of all the yellow terrain and reposition it onto the blue terrain which we're planning to have open by Martin Luther King Weekend. F.I.S will be priority #1 as we need this trail ready to go for the annual USSA Glover Memorial Invitational. With F.I.S loaded, we'll put any remaining snowguns on Sundance, Jack's Cutoff and Nimbus to get those trails going. The current forecast bodes well for our plan to be successful, giving us over 100 acres of open terrain for the holiday weekend across the two hills.
Black River Snowmaking Update
Similarly to on the Summit Side, yesterday was moving day at Black River Basin. The crew spent the evening moving their equiment off of the green shaded terrain onto the yellow highlighted runs following a quick refresh after the weekend. Our cold temps over the next 48 hours should allow us to finish off Portside and River Drive before the weekend.
From there we'll be moving onto Naudical Mile and onto the west side of the hill for the first time this season. Our plan is to get snow made on Upper Spillway and Logjam so we can add the Capstan Lift to our schedule for MLK Weekend. This will help spread folks out and provide a bit of variety for a day of skiing at The Basin. Keep doing those snow dances, and with a little help from Mother Nature and Sister Superior, we could see even more terrain open even quicker.
North Central Conference Racing
Tomorrow, January 4th we're hosting the Wisconsin North Central Conference ski racers for a day of training at Black River Basin. These high school racers will be training on Starboard throughout the day on Thursday in preparation for their first race of the season next Tuesday here at Jackson Creek Summit. I'm looking forward to hosting our first race of the season as we work towards getting all of our racing terrain prepped for the competition season.
