Camp Fortune - March 17, 2024

As the ski season is quickly coming to a close, Camp Fortune is well positioned and in excellent shape to continue to offer lift serviced skiing for a few more weeks. Today's visit comes after another round of mild weather and some overnight light rain/snow. Conditions were typical spring skiing on a groomed surface. Hegg was open ungroomed, but I have no problem admitting that I was not feeling adventurous for that classic steep!

Saturday saw some brief power outages at Camp Fortune, which resulted in some electrical damage to the Clifford quad. As a result, those trails are now closed for the season. Despite that, what was open was definitely enough to satisfy all expectations. For the most part, it was a cloudy day, however the morning saw a brief period of sun and blueish skies come out.

Here is the situation at the hill today... few people, no lines, everyone present having a good time... oh and the Meech side was open, which was definitely the highlight of the visit. 

All the trails were available full width, with the only notable bare spots on Sparks and Paradis (middle sections) and Skyway. Anticipating that Humdinger Ravine (the return trail to the Valley from Skyline) would be a bit washed out, I parked on Skyline to start the day. The slopes on Skyline with the orientation to the sun were a bit softer and mushy compared to the rest. Bud Clark and Lower Canadian were really fast with no wet or sticky patches, so it was easy to just let go and get some speed. Sparks was the same. Very surprised how well the snow is holding on this spring, which is definitely encouraging for the prospect of future ski days.

Heading over to the Valley to access Meech, both Pineault (Park) and Allen's Alley were open, along with the Magic Carpet.

Meeech! What can I say, both slopes were in excellent condition, which brings us to the trail of the day, North American. Such a great slope, with a nice long pitch from the start, dropping into a long winding cruiser for the bottom half. I must have done it 4 or 5 times. The recent investment of adding snowmaking to this trail has done wonders to make it open more than ever before, and played a big part in it still being open this day in the spring.

A great visit to Camp Fortune with today marking the final opportunity for night skiing. Camp Fortune will be open this week with the plan to run Meech, Pineault and Skyline quads, along with the magic carpet. That's right, Pineault AND Meech sides will be open this week (Monday onward, as long as snow conditions permit) in lieu of the Clifford quad being unavailable. In talking to management, there is a hope to offer two more weekends of skiing but to be determined based on weather, snow conditions and skier demand. One thing is for sure, I plan to be there, and hope you will too!