Snow Business: Weather Window Finally Opens At Mount Southington

SOUTHINGTON, CT — The calendar has flipped to January and with it has come the cold weather Mount Southington has been craving.

"Yes ... we're making snow," Mount Southington General manager Jay Dougherty said Monday morning. He added that the overnight temperatures should be in the 20s and teens most of the week, giving the snowmaking crews a chance to cover the trails.

Pictures showed up at the Mountain's social media pages Monday morning showing the machines at work.

Dougherty called it a "huge difference."

That's not to say it was a lost cause for the long New Year's weekend. Considering the drizzle and high temperatures, it was arguably a miracle that Mount Southington had four trails and three lifts open.

Though one gets a weird feeling riding up the lift amid some grass, the trails that needed to recovered were covered — a green and a blue and the learning area that provided enough top-to-bottom action to keep those itching to get out happy.

Back to the snowmaking ...

Two trails were quickly added Monday and Dougherty expects to be expanding the terrain daily with the upcoming temperatures. Wednesday looks like the only questionable day.

Dougherty said season passes are still available without the cap imposed by capacity issues a year ago. Lodge occupancy does have a few restrictions and there is plenty of outdoor seating.

Once the snow is down, Mount Southington can take care of things weekly with a new state-of-the art groomer. It should not take long to be fully open.

See the pricing at https://mountsouthington.com

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Chris Dehnel is a Patch editor who has been writing about snow sports for more than two decades. He is a past-president of the Eastern Ski Writers Association and a former board member of the North American Snowsports Journalists Association. His Snow Business column appears periodically during the season.