WESTON, Mo. — Despite recent snowstorms, it’s been a challenge for Snow Creek to make snow stay on the ground as the Midwest mountain in Weston, Missouri, nears the end of its season.
“After a big snow, everybody sees it and wants to try it out,” said Thom Crowson, senior manager of mountain operations at Snow Creek. “Weather has been a real challenge. We just can’t get enough cold days, and you can see right now it’s melting, coming down on me.”
Crowson, a retired army colonel, says this season has been tough.
“This year, Mother Nature hasn’t done us any favors most of the year,” he said. “The end of December I was actually standing out here with shorts and flip-flops. We weren’t sure we were going to open."
Crowson said this season is the latest Snow Creek has ever opened up. They usually start making snow in November, but because of weather challenges, they had to push it to January.
On Thursday, they made the difficult decision to shut down to make more snow, and it was profitable.
“10,000 tons on this hill,” he said.
So far this year, they’ve made 50,000 tons of snow. But last year, Crowson said they were able to make well over 100,000 tons.
“Things are getting warmer, and it’s something we have to take into consideration,” he said. “Everything you see here is man-made snow. We’ve gotten a total of 6 inches here, two of that was yesterday.”
