January 30th was truly a night to remember. Laughter, cheers and tears. The Hickory Family survives. Thanks to everyone who came to the premiere of Reviving the Legend, the story about the skiing community responding to our call for help. The next showing is scheduled for Tannery Pond on February 28th. We will be sending out announcements and link for tickets next week. We are looking for additional showing venues in Saratoga and Vermont. If anyone has contacts, please let us know.
Mother Nature is still being stingy with snow. We continue to get dustings and today’s 4” of wetter, heavier snow may provide us a decent base as we anticipate more snow in the next few weeks.
Our current goal is to complete lift preparation for state inspections in the coming week. One of our significant challenges for the last 3 weeks has been accessing the top of Poma 2 because of significant icing on our access road and the inability of any of our mountain vehicles to ascend safely. With the new snow, this shouldn’t be a problem next week. Our other challenge has been trying to decipher years of quick fixes and patches to the T-bar and Poma 1 circuits, making it difficult to locate disconnects in the safety switches and failures in the circuit components. T-Bar is now good to go and we’re hopeful that we will have Poma 1 solved next week.
If inspections go well, we will open the first weekend thereafter unless we get rain, in which case, we will wait longer for snow. We will open the IndyPass portal for reservations as soon as we have an opening date.
We have received a quote for the design and mapping of a mountain bike trail system that will accommodate adaptive bikes on the Hickory and affiliated properties. The company will also provide construction estimates post design. We are encouraged by their willingness to work with us in application for grant funding for the project. We are also in discussion with Saratoga Mountain Biking Association which is interested in collaborating on this project.
Hoping for no more crossed wires and a big snow dump for the school break in February. Think snow!