Here at Brundage Mountain, it’s not uncommon for us to stand in awe of the power of nature. Often beautiful, sometimes fierce, we tend to be fans of a ‘good winter storm’.

This week, even the most passionate snow lovers among us may have met our match. The same storms that dumped SIX FEET of fresh snow on our beloved mountain since December 10th have also brought a larger-than-normal share of headaches. Our area has been dealing with intermittent power outages since Friday as snow-laden trees take down power lines. Today, the combination of snow and high winds put us in an even stickier predicament.

Last night we saw a modest 3″ of snow, but with winds coming in at more than 50 miles per hour. We woke up to a layer of rime ice the likes of which most of us have never seen before.

A more typical ice event at Brundage would leave ten or a dozen or so chairs coated with thick enough ice to require ‘manual removal’.

Today, every single one of our 88 chairs was ‘rimed up’. As the carriers enter the terminal, our maintenance team begins the de-icing process by hand.

We started this process at the summit and finished it up in the base terminal. As you can see, the rime ice was easily 6-8 inches and no cinch to remove.

After each grip assembly was cleaned, we had to manually push each carrier through the terminal.

 

We underestimated how long it would take to remove all this ice, but with safety as our top priority, rushing through it was not an option. We apologize to everyone who came up to enjoy a full day on the slopes and couldn’t reach the summit until 3:00 pm or who decided to come back and try another day. We want to thank everyone who hung in there patiently and celebrated with us once the lift was finally open.

The good news? The harshest storms seem to be behind us. There’s snow in the forecast for the next few days, but in more moderate amounts. We’re even expecting a couple days of sunshine this weekend. The other silver lining? With limited operations today, there are plenty of fresh lines out there waiting for tomorrow’s visitors.

As it turns out, power was restored to the mountain within moments of the ice being cleared from the BlueBird. That means we plan to run the BlueBird Quad, Lakeview Lift, Bear Chair and Easy Street tomorrow. We hope our weather woes are behind us, and with brighter skies overhead, we hope you’ll come up and join us soon.

• April