Making the call.

Making the call to open or close for the day can be one of the toughest decisions to be made out here at the Brim. The Weather guessers had set the stage, a snow storm was forecast to travel into Ontario (originating out of Texas) and bring with it a substantial gift of snow.....delivered on the tails of wind speeds of 30 to 50kmh. In the early hours of this morning the wind was high and swirling whiteouts circled the slopes of Brimacombe. Snow accumulated in drifts across the slopes, and heavier sleet like particles tapped at the windows of the buildings. A search of the weather radars and local forecasts told us that the wind speeds were not going to drop anytime soon. The decision to close for the day was made (a decision most of our neighbouring resorts also made), not due to snow itself, but the high winds and resulting whiteout conditions. Rolling ahead into the early daylight hours the wind was still high, creating very poor driving conditions on the roads heading towards the Brim. A majority of the new snow had blown from the top of Brimacombe's slopes, however just over the crest the trees lining the runs had captured and saved much of the new snow which had drifted into washboard like ridges.

High winds can create unsafe operational conditions, they can affect our abilities to properly groom our terrain (wind blown, heavily ridged snow requires grooming) and can affect the safe operation of our lifts. Public safety is our number one concern.

Throughout the morning we began to clear our snow blown roads and parking lots, the winds dropped considerably and the weather radar and local forecasts showed that the risk of high wind was over. We reassessed and called in the grooming staff, we would open for night skiing.

As I write, the staff have finished clearing the decks, more new snow is falling to the ground and the operational checks are underway on our Lifts and Trails. It is going to be a fantastic night at the Brim, if you've spent the day on the couch watching movies or a day in the office thinking about skiing or snowboarding it's time to hit the slopes! We are now open for night skiing until 10pm.

Cheers,

Mark