A late blast of winter is hitting the North Shore mountains, with some expecting significant snow as they prepare to close out a rollercoaster of a season.
While rain blanketed much of the Lower Mainland Monday, that precipitation is bringing some much-desired flurries higher up.
Mt Seymour spokesperson Simon Whitehead tells CityNews the resort is already seeing the snow come down.
With just days left in the spring ski season, this is welcome news.
“We’ve been pretty lucky, we’ve got a nice little storm coming which is delivering probably about 20, 25 centimetres in total,” he said Monday around noon.
“It’s looking like we’re getting a nice little dump to top of the ski slopes for the remainder of the season.”
Cameras at Cypress and Grouse mountains also showed snow coming down Monday.
This comes at the tail-end of what has been an unpredictable season. Cypress, Grouse, and Mt Seymour all dealt with closures in December and January due to a lack of snow and wet, warmer weather.
Videos made the rounds online, showing bare runs in places like Whistler during what would normally be a snow-heavy time of year for local mountains.
While this late snowfall is providing mountains with a last hurrah, Whitehead says snow this time of year isn’t uncommon.
“We do kind of get these spring storms coming through, but we never say no, and it’s always great to see snow on the ground,” he said.
Both Mt Seymour and Cypress are expecting to finish the season on Sunday, April 14.
“Obviously, it’s been a very challenging season. It was a wild ride. We had no snow, then we had snow, then no snow, then we had lots of snow. But it’s been really consistent since we kind of reopened again and it’s been great. We have everything open. Now, we’re in full-on spring conditions — obviously apart from today — so everything’s melting fast but we’ve got plenty of snow to see us through the rest of the week,” said Whitehead.
“It’s been very, very, very challenging. One of our biggest challenges, of course, was keeping staff. You can imagine having no snow for a significant period of time and then the snow arriving, and having to upscale the resort as quickly as possible trying to find enough teammates to turn the lifts on. It’s a very labour-intensive project to run a ski resort.”
Whitehead says March is a big month for spring snow across the North Shore, traditionally. He’s hoping people take advantage of this late blast of winter.
“We’re open for another week and then closed until next winter. So if you have any inkling to get your final turns in for the season, now is the time,” Whitehead said.
While this season has yet to wrap up officially, Whitehead is already looking forward to later this year.
“It’s already looking like next year is going to be a La Niña, which is really exciting. So it will be business as usual.”
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