While most Wisconsinites were dreading the return of winter conditions, it comes with high praise for some local businesses.
The cool-down allows Little Switzerland ski mountain in Slinger to reopen.
The five day stretch of unseasonably warm weather over the past week forced Little Switzerland to temporarily close down. Since Monday, the business’ parking lot has been empty and the ski lifts sat still - a far cry from a normal Friday at the popular ski hill in late February.
“It would be busy, after it’s cold in January, February and March tends to be the time everybody comes out and they want to get their last runs in,” said operations manager Jon Fink.
Fink said several days of record-breaking temperatures melted half their snow.
“We prepare for this, but not that much warmth for that period of time,” he said.
The ski hill closed Monday during what’s usually their peak season.
“As you can imagine it was hard on the slopes,” said Fink. “When you don’t get freezing temperatures at night it’s very hard to maintain a snow base.”
However, the return of winter elements with several inches of snow in the forecast gives crews renewed hope.
“We’re going to be going all night,” said Fink.
Fink said workers will be packing snow through Friday night so skiers can hit the slopes over the cooler weekend.
“We started this morning moving snow around and we’re going straight through until tomorrow morning,” he said.
Big crowds are expected at Little Switzerland Saturday afternoon for a snowboarding terrain park championship.
Be sure and try our new SNOWCAST APP! It is the "snow equivalent to STORM SHIELD" - a great new product that gives you high resolution snow forecasts for any part of the nation! It has just been introduced for iPhones, but we are working on the Android version! Just search SNOWCAST in the App Store or click here.
