December 2023

Santa skis Brundage with an elf and a reindeer.

The Little Ski Hill was able to set up several rails in front of the ski lodge thanks to a special delivery of snow.May Hardware co-owner Scott Fereday and Ben Gau of McCall teamed up with a dump truck and front loader to create a pile of snow at the base of the ski area to make up for this year’s sparse snowpack.“Due to low snow levels and unseasonably warm weather, we were unable to make our opening date this past week,” said Little Ski Hill Terrain Park Manager Preston Woods.“Thankfully we have some incredible humans in our community rallying together to help make a hike (terrain) park happen for our Little Ski Hill,” Woods said.This year marked the first time in 12 years that the ski area has needed to bring in snow to kickstart the season, he said.The delivery comes just in time for the ski area’s annual Holiday Rail Jam, where skiers and snowboarders will compete on Friday from 4 to 8 p.m.Snow has been lacking for the event in the past, but this year’s snowfall is the worst in recent memory.“There are years we have had to build the jumps by hand without the snowcat, but it’s never been even close to this bad,” Woods said.Fereday and Gau answered the call to assist when ski hill staff started searching for volunteers to help make up for the lack of snow.“Let’s do something to get kids stoked about skiing since there’s no skiing to be had,” Fereday said after dumping a load of snow at the hill on Tuesday.The transported pile was pushed, flattened and shaped into the landings and takeoffs of several rail features.“It’s a solid base, the kids aren’t going to bust through it and hopefully it gets us through until it snows enough to open,” Woods said.Tamarack and Brundage both have little terrain parks up and running, but a lot of children that ski at the Little Ski Hill do not have passes to the resorts and are relying on this project for somewhere to ski, he said.In total, eight truckloads of snow were taken from piles at the McCall Municipal Airport that were created from clearing the runway.“The airport absolutely will not miss this snow,” said Airport Manager Emily Hart.“During heavy winters like last year, the snow piles got quite high and wide, so having one of our early season piles lowered considerably just gives us more room to pile what’s to come,” Hart said.There was still not enough snow to open the ski area’s T-bar lift as of this week but the lodge at the Little Ski Hill opened for the year on Tuesday with drinks, food and ski movies on offer for visitors from 2 to 7 p.m.“We’ll kick the lights on at 5 p.m.

Santas ski Tamarack