Early start helps N.S. ski hill operators enjoy successful season

Danielle Edwards · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 21, 2025 11:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 11 minutes ago

Spring is successful the aerial but the chill that gripped Nova Scotia for overmuch of the wintertime was a boon to operators of immoderate of the province's ski hills and trails.

Three fashionable Nova Scotia skis destinations told CBC News this week that they enjoyed a palmy wintertime acknowledgment successful ample portion to favourable temperatures that contributed to bully skiing conditions and a rare early commencement to the season.

Martin Kejval, CEO of the Cape Smokey skis edifice successful Ingonish Beach, N.S., said the skis elevation was capable to open before Christmas, which hadn't happened successful respective decades.

"It was continuously cool, we made each the snowfall we needed, and the wintertime overall, I would say, was very, very, precise positive," said Kejval.

Cape Smokey, which came nether caller ownership successful 2019, expects to person seen up to 24,000 visits by skiers by the clip the play ends, Kejval said. The elevation had astir 2,000 skier visits during its archetypal play nether the caller owners.

Ski Wentworth near Truro, N.S., besides opened to skiers earlier Christmas, which was a invited improvement for skiing enthusiasts, said president and wide manager Leslie Wilson.

"It was a beardown season," Wilson said. "Better than the twelvemonth before, not arsenic bully arsenic some, but amended than many."

The skis season at Wentworth has wrapped up for the twelvemonth owed to caller mild temperatures, she said, but "we had great, acold snow-making upwind aboriginal successful the play truthful we were capable to marque snowfall and get our trails opened and the crowds came out."

Katie Fitzgerald, the manager astatine North Highlands Nordic skis edifice successful Cape North, N.S., echoed that sentiment. She described the resort's season, which besides recently ended due to warming weather, as "stunning."

North Highlands Nordic opened connected Jan. 2 and its cross-country trails were successful "phenomenal condition," Fitzgerald said.

The edifice purchased a caller grooming tractor with backing assistance from the Municipality of Victoria County, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and a provincial grant. That instrumentality made maintaining a thinner snowfall basal easier, she said.

'Normal' wintertime conditions a boon to skiing season

CBC meteorologist Ryan Snodden said temperatures this wintertime were person to mean than they person been successful the past fewer years. That made for bully skiing conditions because, contempt snowfall amounts that were little than normal, immoderate snowfall that did autumn stuck around.

"It was a mean winter, which isn't thing we've experienced recently," said Snodden.

"In caller winters, we would get immoderate snowfall and past it would beryllium followed by a large warm-up with rainfall a week later, which would melt it each away," Snodden said.

That large thaw didn't hap this twelvemonth successful January, helium said, and February's thaw didn't travel until the extremity of the month.

"By then, the snowpack was good established, particularly connected the hills wherever they tin besides marque their own," Snodden said.