The skating rink at Big White Ski Resort is currently closed due to warm temperatures.

(GEORGINA WHITEHOUSE / iNFOnews.ca)

After a delayed opening because a lack of snow and now a lift malfunction and rain in January, it may seem as though Big White Ski Resort can’t catch a break. However, skiers and snowboarders shouldn’t be deterred.

Senior vice president Michael Ballingall said although the mountain might get more rain tonight, Jan. 29, rain and warmer temperatures in January aren't completely out of the norm.

“If you look at the 60 years that we've been open, it's probably 25% of the years we've had rain at some stage in January,” he told iNFOnews.ca. “We're lucky that we're not getting what the coast is getting.”

Clouds and poor visibility caused by the rain could deter skiers and snowboarders from heading up the mountain, but the weather is set to shift in the coming week.

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“It's not the rain that they worry about. It's what comes with the rain, and that's cloud,” Ballingall said. “Big white is so high. That's one of our benefits, is we're so high… at 1,500, 2,000 meters, most of our resort is higher than that in the high alpine, and so our snow stays intact. You just can't see. And that's what people really don't like."

This can be frustrating for those coming far and wide for blue skies and champagne powder.

“Everybody wants those days. I wish Mother Nature would give us a few more of those. But, you know, it's sliding on snow. People, they're still having a good time."

Despite the cloudy cover, the snow on the slopes is still good quality, he said. It's the lower levels that have taken the biggest blow.

The creeks and drainage ditches are frozen and so this past weekend the roads below the resort resembled slush and puddles more than snow.

However, the real concern is ice rain, which can cake a lift in ice overnight. This is what the resort experienced on Sunday but it wasn’t what caused the Black Forest chairlift to break down this weekend.

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A bearing in the lift’s drive engine failed, causing the engine to stop entirely. By using an evacuation motor, all of the passengers were safely evacuated, but now the resort must wait for a replacement part to be delivered.

“You know, something breaks, nine times out of ten we probably have a replacement part in our shop. But this is such an unusual part to fail that the part was in Barrie, Ontario. It's with the courier company now. Hopefully, it'll be here first thing in the morning, but we all know how courier companies are these days. So when we get it, and we get it up to the mountain, we get it to the lift, (it will be) anywhere between 12 to 24 hours to get the lift going again.”

For now, it is a waiting game for both the lift part and mother nature.

“We’ll get through Wednesday. Thursday, it'll start to cool down. By next weekend, everyone will have forgotten last weekend. We'll be back to normal,” Ballingall said. “We just hope that the part gets here in a speedy fashion. We'll get the lift fixed, and we'll get it going again. Nothing I can do about Mother Nature, so we'll just see what she throws at us, and we'll deal with it.”

More information about Big White Ski Resort can be found here.

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