One of the warmest winters in years put a damper on this year’s cross-country ski season, but snow-making saved the day for Berkshire East Mountain Resort in Charlemont.
The warm fall weather meant a delayed opening, but once temperatures dropped, the ski resort was able to make enough snow to keep most of its trails open throughout the season, says spokesman Gabriel Porter-Henry.
“Obviously, this has been a challenging winter for ourselves and others in the ski industry,” said Porter-Henry. “When people don’t see snow in their backyards, they don’t come out to ski. But once we were in the height of the season, we had a great year of skiing.”
“We’re really well set up to make snow,” he explained. “All of our main trails are set up to be open on nothing but man-made snow.”
Porter-Henry said tree-skiing through glades in the woods was not possible because of the lack of natural snow, but the downhill trails were fine.
Also, with so little snow elsewhere, Berkshire East was happy to host the Berkshire Cross-Country Ski League, which includes high school cross-country ski teams from Mohawk Trail Regional School and other teams from Berkshire and Franklin County high schools.
Although the start of skiing was delayed, Berkshire East was able to keep its bike trails open a week longer last fall and open it earlier this year.
Berkshire East’s rafting season opened Friday, April 1, and the Berkshire East Bike Park opens for the season April 23. The new Mountain Coaster drew more riders during warm weekends this winter as well.
The Northfield Mountain Recreation and Environmental Center was open for cross-country skiing only five days this winter, “and none were particularly stellar,” recalls Bill Gabriel, the center’s manager.
“It was a very slow winter; it started slow and then it tapered,” said Gabriel. “We had a skimpy 2 to 3 inches of snow on the ground when we were open.”
Because Northfield Mountain doesn’t make snow, this year’s skiing was restricted to field loops and the easiest trails. When skiing wasn’t possible, “people did do the trails for hiking and walking, with creepers or ice-spikes on their feet,” he added.
“We’re looking forward to summer — camping, riverboat and paddle sports at Barton Cove,” he said.
For Stump Sprouts in Hawley, this winter produced the worst cross-county ski season since 1990, according to owner Lloyd Crawford.
When asked if he had only five ski days, Crawford replied, “not even that many! This year, we had one extended weekend.”
In the snowy winter of 2014-15, he pointed out, Stump Sprouts was skiable from Thanksgiving until mid-April.
“Yeah this was a terrible winter,” Crawford remarked. “But the bright side is our lodging guests — who are the mainstay of our business — came. We didn’t have any cancellations. People adapted nicely. They were just walking or hanging out and were able to do things they couldn’t do with snow on the ground.”
And some of Stump Sprouts’ lodgers went skiing down the road — at Berkshire East — where there was snow-making.
“It’s not a financial disaster for us,” Crawford continued. “We, of course, love skiing and were sad to not see it happen this year. But I think the main reason people come is to get away and have a good time with friends.”
“We run our lodge year-round,” he said. “We would be gone long ago if we didn’t have alternative planning.”
Some of the lodgers at Stump Sprouts even went downhill-skiing at Berkshire East, where there was snow-making, if not lots of natural snow this season.
Diane Broncaccio can be reached at:
dbroncaccio@recorder.com, or at: 772-0261, ext. 277.