Okanagan ski hills mark the end of a challenging season: ‘Wasn’t our best year’
Global News
Ski hills across British Columbia first battled little to no snow on the ground. Then, they faced extreme weather conditions.
Ski season at Apex Mountain Resort officially came to an end on Monday, following one of the most challenging seasons yet for local ski hills.
Ski hills across British Columbia first battled little to no snow on the ground. Then, they faced extreme weather conditions.
“It was a really challenging season, to be honest with you — very slow start in the beginning, which is not what we’d like to set things up for the Christmas vacation period,” said Apex Mountain Resort general manager James Shalman.
“Then we got into some extreme cold weather and within a couple of weeks we got into some extreme warm weather. And it’s really been like that cycle all the way through the season.”
The same was felt at Big White Ski Resort near Kelowna, B.C.
“If you look at how the season’s gone from late November until now, it’s been everything,” said Big White Ski Resort’s vice-president, Michael J. Ballingall.
“Mother Nature has thrown every curveball she possibly could at us and on some days, we hit it out of the park, and on other days we just had to absorb it.”
As a result, traffic at Apex Mountain was down this year compared to years prior.
