Ski season underway, but is it here to stay?

By Roberta Bell and Sarah Turnbull

Early snowfall “takes some of the pressure off” the Ottawa area’s main ski resort, Camp Fortune, but owner Peter Sudermann says it doesn’t guarantee prime skiing throughout the season.

Camp Fortune, in Chelsea, Que. just outside Gatineau, opened one of its 23 runs on Nov. 22 and two more last Friday. It will be open daily as of this Friday.

The resort plans long-range, Sudermann said, but once ski and snowboard season begins, unpredictable weather patterns means ski conditions vary “week to week.”

Last week, about 25 centimetres of snow fell, which gave people “the perception that everything’s open,” Sudermann said. “When they call up and you say, ‘Well, we have two lifts and it’s really three runs open,’ they kind of wonder what’s wrong.”

The answer, Sudermann said, is nothing.

It takes about 900 hours, or 38 days, of snowmaking to open all of the runs at Camp Fortune.

“It is very much a science,” Sudermann said.

During ideal cold and dry snowmaking conditions, compressors push about 5,700 litres of water and 70 cubic metres of air per minute through the mountain.

There are 38 guns positioned along the hills, which spray mist out through a tiny nozzle. When the air and water meet, the water crystallizes and freezes during what Sudermann calls “hang time.”

While Sudermann said the turnout on opening weekend was good — about 500 people were on the slopes at Camp Fortune over the course of three days — skiers and snowboarders typically “don’t want to come out, spend the money and just have one run to ski on.”

Ski Edelweiss now has four runs open and is open daily. Mont Ste-Marie and Mont Cascades both open this weekend. All three are located about 20 minutes past Camp Fortune in Quebec.

In the 25-day period between Dec. 1 and Christmas, Sudermann said the stress to get runs open starts to set in.

“People have bought season passes and they expect to go skiing,” he said.

“As it gets closer and closer people think, ‘Oh, maybe we aren’t going to get skiing.’ You have people calling up going, ‘I bought a season pass and what happens if you don’t get snow this year? Am I going to get my money back?'”

Camp Fortune’s proximity to the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau make it “home hill” to many local skiers and snowboarders, Sudermann said.

“We’re the closest. We’re the most convenient. That’s a big selling feature.”

Local skiers hitting the slopes last weekend were certainly sold.

Quebec resident Antare White, 15, has been skiing for four years. He lives near Camp Fortune, which is where he learned to ski with the help of his father.

“My dad really wanted to take me skiing for the first time. He skied here,” said White, who was out on the slopes at Camp Fortune Friday.

“The hills are just always nice,” he said.

Competitive snowboarder Aidan McLaughlin, 13, also lives nearby and frequents Camp Fortune.

“They already have some features set up, like jumps and rails and stuff,” McLaughlin said Friday.

While ski resorts sometimes vie for day traffic during peak season, Sudermann said geography plays a big role in business strategies.

He said the Nov. 24 fire at Calabogie Peaks Resort, located about an hour and a half from Camp Fortune across the border in Ontario, hasn’t impacted his business at all.

Ottawa residents Andrew Ngyuen and his girlfriend, Rachel Hartviksen, skied for the first time at Camp Fortune Friday.

“There are other places around here, but this is the closest one,” Ngyuen said.

While Hartviksen is an experienced skier, Ngyuen is a beginner.

“It’s perfect at Camp Fortune because they have the bunny hill open,” Ngyuen said.

Sudermann said people are always eager to hit the slopes at the beginning of the season.

“When the ski season’s on, people are excited and it just seems to build,” he added.