It’s an absolute go! Ski Apache will open Thanksgiving Day. The skiing and snowboarding will come despite La Niña weather forecasts for below-par winter snows.
“I think it’s been positive,” Justin Rowland, Ski Apache’s director of operations, said recenctly from one of the ski mountain’s snow courses. “We have reservations coming in for Thanksgiving. We’re going to have a lot of folks in town for Thanksgiving time. I think the town and ourselves are going to be pleasantly busy.”
Rowland dispelled rumors that Ski Apache would be open only on weekends or holidays.
“We’re going to be operational per normal. You’ll see us seven days a week, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.”
With just seven inches of snow from the heavens atop the mountain so far this season, snowmaking equipment has been going much of November.
“Man-made snow wise, we’re shaping up pretty good,” Rowland said Thursday. “We got some cold temperatures earlier in the month so we’re able to hammer out chairs three and five, our beginner area. And we’re working diligently right now on Deep Freeze, to have it open for Thanksgiving so we’ve got some expanded skiing for skiers.”
A lot of Deep Freeze’s course is covered, in many places with 18 to 24 inches of produced snow.
“You’re talking maybe a third of the mountain that will be open from the top of Capitan through Deep Freeze,” Rowland said. “Deep Freeze is a fairly popular run for the beginner and beginner/intermediate crowd so it should be a lot of fun.”
An array of new snowmaking equipment, installed in 2009, has greatly enhanced Ski Apache.
“The snowcats, when we have a fleet of those up here and once the snow’s in piles, the snowcats push it around, flatten it out and till it out so you can ski it.”
The additional equipment gives Ski Apache the ability to make snow along the popular run to the peak. It also can cover the entire lower half of the mountain for a total of about 250 acres.
“Once we get this beginner area and Capitan hashed out, we’ll start working our way to the top of the mountain,” Rowland said.
Snowmaking has taken place almost every night this month.
“We’ve had a couple of nights that have been too warm,” Rowland said. “And some really windy nights where it was cold but we chose not to make snow because that wind isn’t really going to help. It blows it all the way to Las Cruces.”
What would be “a lot fun,” Rowland said, would be some natural snow.
“We’re ready to go and get that ready. If you can get a nice foot to two feet of snow out there, we’ll get the groomers out there, get it knocked down, a base packed in so that when you’re skiing you’re not going all the way through that brand new snow to the ground. But it does take some preparation. I know that a lot of skiers and the snowboarders, after we get a snowstorm, sort of expect that some of this upper mountain terrain that wasn’t open is going to be open the next day. Depending on the snow, sometimes it is but sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it takes another day or two of prep for it to be safe for the skiers and snowboarders to traverse on.”
With any luck, Rowland said it will be chairs three, four and five for the opener.
“If you haven’t skied or snowboarded, try one or the other, now is the perfect time to come up. We’ll have these beginner areas open and you’ll have it to yourself and you can learn and get your foot in the door early in the season so you can have a strong foundation for the rest of the season.”
Lift tickets start at just $35! For more details visit http://www.skiapache.com/