Snow Business: Surviving the Rain and The Hall of Fame Class Announced

So, yeah, it rained even north of the border this week.

But it seems like to snow sports industry in the East has survived and will advance into the critical early season period that December represents.

Take Mt. Tremblant in Quebec, for example.

The Mountain opened on Nov. 24 after 180 hours of snowmaking. The system up there includes 1,133 snow guns that could fill 76 football field of one foot of snow in 24 hours.

So even after the rain, Tremblant had five trails and a total of 56 acres open (out of 96 runs).

Tremblant officials said they will be adding terrain as the weather gets colder.

Those U.S. eastern resorts with the best snowmaking systems built a base when they had the chance and survived.

For example, Killington in Vermont was sporting 24 trails open and seven lifts operating as of Friday. The bases ranges from 1o to 16 inches.

In New Hampshire, Loon had 14 trails and two lifts open with the same base depths.

In New York, Whiteface had two lifts and six runs open with base depths up to 2 feet.

Connecticut mountains are still looking for the right temperatures to make snow.

Hall of Fame Class Announced

The list of the latest inductees to the The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame includes four names familiar to eastern skiing and snowboarding — Dan and John Egan, Gretchen Rous Besser and Bernie Weichsel.

History week is slated for April 5 through 9 and the class of 2016 will be inducted and honored in Stowe on April 8. The inductees will be enshrined the following September at the Hall of Fame Museum in Ishpeming, MI. Ishpeming is the birthplace of modern, organized skiing in America.

The Egan brothers have starred in more Warren Miller films than anyone worldwide. As pioneering explorers and ambassadors they traveled the globe to truly put the “extreme” in skiing. They set the standard for what is possible in big-mountain skiing.

Gretchen Besser’s unprecedented career as a ski patroller and first aid instructor are impressive and her impact as an historian, international liaison and visionary in the world of skiing sets her apart. She generously shares her passion and vast knowledge to better industry organizations worldwide.

Bernie Weichsel is Known globally throughout the industry, Bernie has done it all. As an advocate, he created an organized freestyle competition circuit. His innovative SKI USA worldwide promotions continue to bring thousands of international skiers to U.S. slopes and his consumer ski and snowboard expos attract tens of thousands of visitors each year.

Photo Credit: Chris Dehnel

Chris Dehnel is a editor at Patch and past-president and current executive secretary of the North American Snowsports Journalists Association Eastern Division. His Snow Business column will appear regularly during the season.