SPRING IS HERE

Spring officially began March 20th.

The start of March certainly has been more like January than start to spring. With over 20″ of snow this March we have had one of the snowier ones in recent memory.  Saturday, March 18’s weather was also more like Saturday, January 18th with highs only in the teens and blowing snow!  Regardless we’ve been having fun straight through no matter what and now we are officially into spring!  

SPRING HAS SPRUNG…

Today (Monday, March 20th) is straight up amazing spring conditions with brilliant sunshine and soft snow!  But the weekend is what I’m excited about!  It’s been a few years since we truly had a beautiful day for Pond Skimming and it looks likely that will happen for us this year! 

The grooming and park teams will be teaming up this week to build the pond at the bottom of Aspen for our event which is slated for Saturday, March 25th at Noon.  Following the pond skimming – Brad Emanuel will be taking the stage on Historic Deck which should be hopping.  

WHY WE TRAIN…. 

Every single fall we do chairlift evacuation refreshers with our patrol and full time year rounds staff.  It’s typically a few hours on a Sunday but it’s so necessary.  Sunday we had a lift evacuation.  Blitzen had an issue on the downloading side of the chair at one of our sheave trains.  The fix was over an hour long and the chair could not be run safely without it being fixed so an evacuation was called for.  66 people were unloaded by our ski patrol and staff using ropes and teamwork. Guests were lowered slowly and safely within 90 mins and there were no issues. 

 We are lucky to have strong lift mechanics and honestly we rarely have a lift go down where we can’t fix it within minutes.  Blitzen was fixed that night and will operate again Wednesday.  We took extra precaution today to just have both our night and day mechanics here to double check the work that was done last night.  As we wind down the season we are going to alternate our lifts due to business levels.  Blitzen will run weekends & Wednesdays while Santa will operate Monday, Tuesdays & Thursdays.  The same may go for operations in the West and East but here is what you should expect the next few weeks for the triples.  

• Tues, March 21:  Santa 
• Wed, March 22: Blitzen
• Thurs, March 23: Santa
• Friday – Sunday: Blitzen
• Monday, Tuesday: Santa
• Wednesday: Blitzen
• Thursday Santa
• Friday – Sunday (April 2) – Blitzen

Thank you to our patrol, staff, and also our customers who all remained calm and understanding that machines do sometimes break.  

SPRING HOURS 

We are scheduled to operate daily and with our normal operations through April 1.  We will close at 5pm on Sunday, April 2nd.  So our last Season Passholder Bring a Friend for 50% off night will be this Sunday, March 26th.  After April 2nd we will evaluate our business levels and make a plan for operations into April.  We like to maintain our brand in delivering Wisconsin’s longest ski season but understand that once golf courses open, MLB says “Play Ball” and the Final Four rolls around the end is inevitable.  Stay tuned and we’ll keep you informed. But for now keep coming and get those final turns in! 

Right now we do have April 8th a giant Easter Egg Hunt planned for Saturday!  

WHAT’S THE PLAN FOR SUMMER? 

Honestly this is going to be a quiet summer here at Granite Peak.  Our sister resorts are undertaking two massive lift upgrades as both Lutsen Mountains and Snowriver Mountain Resort are installing high speed six packs.  Lutsen is replacing the Bridge Lift and Snowriver is actually replacing three lifts at Jackson Creek with one!  It will truly transform the skiing and riding at both properties. We will be supporting those projects while doing some general maintenance and upkeep of our property.  The last three summers have been quite busy for us with plenty of snowmaking and electrical infrastructure upgrades along with our expansions of decks and facilities.  There is plenty to do but it will be nice not to have major projects so that we can focus on the little things around our resort.  I personally would like to do some landscaping in and around our base area.