Open for skiing
The snow guns are as ready as you are to get underway.
We have a small manmade loop of manmade snow, starting November 20. We’re calling the 0.5k of snow “Nature always wins.”
We can’t get the full Manmade loop out before November 28.
Where’s this loop?
To make it easy, we’ve created trails reflecting our current plans called
“Mother Nature always wins” - opened November 19
“Manmade Snowloop - 2021-22 Early Season” - opening TBD
on Trailhub or our dashboard - where we post current conditions at Craftsbury.
The Pit Loop. Presently more of a Pit Horseshoe, we hope to complete the loop by next week.
Manmade Loop details
We’re distributing from the snow pit, up North Lemon’s, thru Coaches’ Corner, into the lower field, out behind the cabins and completing the loop by the pit.
Why not open the bigger loop already? I thought you saved snow?
We have around 2k of snow saved from last winter. However…
1) It’s saved in a big pit and it needs to be moved from the pit on to the trails with dump trucks. We can’t move the snow if the ground is too soft and/or wet. Ideally? Everything freezes so the trucks can run the loads of snow without trashing the trails.
2) The snow can still melt after we roll it out. We don’t want to roll out the saved snow until the weather looks generally cooperative. That is to say: we don’t want to roll out the ribbon of snow only to have it all melted in a 4 day stretch of 50-60°f and rain.
We didn’t open until the first week of December 2020 last year - we need cooperative weather. We can’t guarantee opening dates, only that we will make the best effort possible to open as soon as possible.
Why don’t you just make more snow if it melts? You have the snowmaking systems.
The same reasons as above, plus we need extended temperatures of ~28°f and below for our Polecat Snowguns to work. We can’t make Mt. Craftsbury without some cooperative temperatures (our snow pile that acts as a quarry for distribution all winter).
What else can I do while I wait for winter? Will I still be able to rollerski in the meantime?
Some of the rollerloop and most of the singletrack and ski trails on Craftsbury’s campus remain open for use. Mountain bike, hike, run or rollerski while we all wait for snow to come.
How can I follow conditions at Craftsbury?
The dashboard (https://craftsbury.com/dashboard) offers all sorts of information:
Trail conditions
Weather info
Webcams
The ability to get your day-pass or annual membership (Getting your annual membership current is a great thing to do to kill the time waiting!)
For now (24 November 21), find Ski conditions on the dashboard as described above and all trail conditions here.
Got other questions? Reach out to us.