Despite snow, Mother Nature still hurting Hoodoo
The sign on the door at Hoodoo Ski Area says it all: “Closed, waiting for snow.”
“I’m devastated — all weekend, I was waiting for 26 inches of snow — and instead we got 7 or 8 inches,” said Daidre Streeter, office manager at Hoodoo.
There’s new snow, but not enough.
The resort reported 14 inches over 36 hours, pushing the base to about two feet. But they need about a foot more to open.
“Typically, this time of year, we have anywhere from 60 to 100 inches of snow, and now we have 22 inches,” Streeter said Monday.
It’s also cold, but not cold enough.
“If it were freezing temperatures, that would be one thing,” Streeter said. “But it looks like we are about to get warmer temperatures.”
It’s not just the sno-cats making noise on the mountain. There’s also the worrisome sound of all that fresh snow melting away.
“Lake Hoodoo, as I like to call it over here, is bigger than I’ve ever seen it,” Streeter said. “I mean, there’s a 3-feet deep pond in the middle of the base. It’s really hard to keep the morale up for everyone and for our employees.”
Especially for the 175 hired seasonal employees. For them, the season hasn’t even started.
“We hired them all in November, we had a great orientation, we did some training, all their paperwork is filled out they are ready to go — and they don’t have jobs,” Streeter said. “They had to go through the holidays without a paycheck.”
Without enough snow for Christmas and New Years operations, Hoodoo has already lost almost 50 percent of its revenue.
“Every day that goes by that we aren’t open, it’s hurting us more and more,” Streeter added.
And if Mother Nature can’t cut them a deal, they could face a first in Hoodoo history — not opening at all.
“She’s our boss — it’s up to her. It either snows or it doesn’t,” Streeter said.
A ski resort on hold, for now.
“We might be a little late, but we just have to keep the faith,” she said. “And old man winter will be coming back from Mexico anytime now — I just know it.”
