Mission Ridge opens up Saturday to bigger crowd than expected

Mission Ridge Winter Park in Fort Qu'Appelle opened up for the season on Saturday.

Anders Svenson, the snow school director, said the turnout for the first day was better than he expected given the extreme cold warnings that were in effect on Friday and Saturday.

Svenson said more than 100 lift tickets were sold, which he said would be an OK day even without the cold weather. He estimates there were about 200 people on the range altogether. 

"It's actually going a lot better than we anticipated," Svenson said. "It was pretty chilly this morning when we woke up so we didn't really know how many people were going to show up."

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Svenson said Mission Ridge usually opens up during the second week of December so they were a little bit behind schedule. 

"People were excited to get out on the snow, so that's good," he said.

Austin Kerester was out enjoying the park, despite the near-bitter cold temperatures.

"It's a little icy but it's good," he said, adding that he tries to make it to Mission Ridge every year. "I can't complain."

"I love it out here," said Cordell Bacon. "It's kind of a short hill but it's nothing to complain about. I mean it's close to home so you come out and do the best you can." 

The bitter cold has allowed the park to use snow guns to make more snow than usual, Svenson said. According to Mission Ridge's Facebook page, 25 snow guns used more than 10 million gallons of water to coat the entire resort with 36 inches of snow.

"The colder the better though," Svenson said of the snow making process.

Mission Ridge decided to delay the opening of the park by a day to make more snow. The ideal temperature to make snow is around –8 C, Svenson said.

"When it's minus 30, we don't make three times as much snow, we make eight times as much snow as we would at minus eight," he said. 

Svenson said the park usually stays open until the end of March and that's what they are aiming for this season.

New programs for women and children are in development as well, and a new shop has been built, he added.