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Pats Peak Ski Area in Henniker can make snow on 100 percent of its trails, helping it survive in its central New Hampshire location, just 20 minutes from Concord.
According to Lori Rowell, director of sales and marketing at Pats Peak, snowmaking “has been important since the beginning,” when the mountain first opened in the 1960s.
This year, the mountain was able to follow its usual schedule of opening on the first Saturday in December and closing on the last Sunday in March. Keeping that schedule, however, required a robust snowmaking operation.
When Pats Peak opened in December, Rowell said, “it was all man-made snow.”
For Rowell, that wasn’t surprising. “We just anticipate there won t be a lot of snow. It s not like we re planning around snowfall. We re just planning around what we want to open and when we have the temperatures,” she said.
Still, for Pats Peak, “it was a bit of a roller coaster. For a little while there in February I think we were like, ‘Oh my gosh, is it gonna be winter?’”
Rowell and Lahood both reported a dramatic increase in snowfall in March, which helped keep their mountains open through the end of the season.
Jessyca Keeler, president of the ski industry trade association Ski New Hampshire, called it a “miracle March.”
Taking advantage of ‘smaller windows of opportunity’
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