For the second consecutive year, Eaglecrest Ski Area has canceled its Slush Cup due to lack of snow.<\/p>\n
What was once an annual event to celebrate the last day of skiing at Eaglecrest featured costumed skiers and snowboarders as they tried to skim across a 50-foot pool of water. This year\u2019s slush cup was scheduled for April 10, but without enough snow on the ground to build the crucial slush pool, Eaglecrest officials have decided to cancel the popular event.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have enough snow to make a pit close to the size it needs to be for that pool,\u201d said Charlie Herrington, the ski area\u2019s marketing and events organizer. \u201cWe would need substantially more snow.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that is by no means hyperbole, because right now there is \u201cabout a centimeter\u201d of snow on the ground where the Slush Cup usually takes place, Herrington said, making the decision to cancel the event a \u201cno brainer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Slush Cup is not the only casualty of this warm winter. Eaglecrest has closed the main mountain indefinitely, and it has canceled several other events, including the Big Mountain Games and the Bill Tugman Obstacle Course. The ski area\u2019s director, Matt Lillard, said that without the main mountain runs Roll Back weekend, which will take place Saturday and Sunday, \u201cprobably wouldn\u2019t be as popular as if we still had our main mountain open.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lillard said that Eaglecrest will reopen the main mountain provided that the ski area gets more snow. Right now, however, anybody looking to enjoy the $7 lift tickets this weekend will be limited to the Porcupine lift, which is the only lift the ski area is operating.<\/p>\n
Despite the closure of the main mountain and the cancelation of Slush Cup, Lillard still has a positive outlook for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still remain optimistic that we\u2019re going to be able to ski, but realistically we\u2019re not going to have enough snow to build a pond,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019d need feet upon feet, and we\u2019re just not seeing that this time in the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fortunately for the ski area it will take far less snow than that to reopen the main mountain, according to Herrington. There is a 300-foot patch of snowless ground between the lower portion of the mountain and the parking lot. Other than that the mountain is still snow-covered, he said. If Eaglecrest gets enough snow to cover that bald spot, he is hopeful that the ski area will be able to reopen the main mountain.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have all of March,\u201d Lillard said. \u201cWe\u2019re just hoping the weather turns and we get some snow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the second consecutive year, Eaglecrest Ski Area has canceled its Slush Cup due to lack of snow. What was once an annual event to celebrate the last day of skiing at Eaglecrest featured costumed skiers and snowboarders as they tried to skim across a 50-foot pool of water. This year\u2019s slush cup was scheduled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":22345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-22344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22344"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=22344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}