After delaying its opening three times since its originally scheduled date Dec. 2, Eaglecrest Ski Area tried to take advantage of unexpectedly heavy snow to unexpectedly open for limited use on Sunday — but high winds thwarted those hopes at the last moment.
The good news is at least one lift on the mountain should be open when the ski resort is scheduled to begin its daily holiday season operations on Wednesday, General Manager Dave Scanlan said Monday.
An announcement on Eaglecrest’s Facebook page on Saturday declared “his past week Eaglecrest received more snow than expected, with that being said, early-season conditions exist on the mountain.” A limited opening of the Ptarmigan lift from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday “for expert skiers/riders only” to access the east and parts of the lower mountain was planned, but Scanlan said high winds kept people who showed up at the lift line from being able to ride up.
“If the winds are gusting above 40 knots then we can’t safely run the lift,” he said. “So yesterday morning the winds were only blowing around 30 knots as we were preparing the mountain to open. Then about maybe a half an hour before we opened we started getting wind gusts to 45 to 50 knots. So what we do is we’ll put it on what we call the wind hold watch and every 15 minutes or half an hour we watch the wind speeds to see if the wind speeds are going to decrease.”
Forecasters at National Weather Service Juneau told ski area employees the winds were expected to diminish, but failed to do so, Scanlan said.
“But thankfully the storm that we had Thursday night into Friday morning put down a lot more snow than we expected,” he said. As of Monday morning “I’m working on getting some snowmaking started up in the Porcupine (lift) area and the base of Hooter (lift) so we can try to get those areas fortified with some good, thick base and man-made snow. And hopefully, that’ll put us in position to get those lifts open very soon.”
While Eaglecrest’s operating plans are being evaluated day-to-day, so far the plan for Wednesday is similar to Sunday’s — the Ptarmigan lift open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. with intended use for expert users.
“We say experts only because early season there’s a lot of hazards out there in the snow,” Scanlan said. “So the advanced and expert riders know how to navigate around this low snowpack. The ground is barely frozen, so there’s open water holes and creek holes. And there’s a lot of hazards that aren’t out there when we get more snow depth.”
The ski area is scheduled to be open daily during the holidays until Jan. 7 (it will be closed Christmas and New Year’s days).
Eaglecrest’s opening was delayed due to warm temperatures and rain that dissolved the snow base and thwarted snowmaking efforts. But Scanlan noted Eaglecrest Grill was open during the weekend for people wanting to access snow on the mountain on their own and estimated hundreds of people showed up to do so.
The forecast for Juneau during the coming days is for mostly cloudy skies on Monday, then possible snow on Tuesday and rain mixed with snow on Wednesday, according to NWS Juneau. Highs are expected to be in the mid-30s, with lows in the mid-20s.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
