Cypress Mountain gets creative to stay open despite sparse snow

A light dusting of snow on Metro Vancouver's North Shore mountains on Saturday offered some relief — and hope — to snowboarders, skiers and mountain staff alike.

By early evening at Cypress Mountain Resort, alpine enthusiasts rode up chairlifts amidst falling snow.

The West Vancouver ski hill's snow ruler had recorded one centimetre of fresh powder by 6 p.m., according to webcams.

It was welcome weather for the popular ski resort's general manager, Matt Davies.

"The forecast actually looks quite promising," he told CBC News in an interview at the resort's highest-elevation Sky Quad lift, the only intermediate and expert terrain Cypress could open all week — which required skiers to hike up a short hill to access another chair down the mountain at the end of their day.

The snow comes after heavy rains and unusually high temperatures, as well as snowpack in the region's mountains being nearly 60 per cent below normal, according to the B.C. River Forecast Centre.

This year's warm and wet weather, experts say, can be partly explained by regular global cycles, but climate change will likely worsen the trend as temperature records shatter year after year.

"It's not the kind of ski season that we're used to," Premier David Eby told reporters Thursday. "There's a lot of concern this might be the new normal for many parts of our province.

"This is an industry that has good years and bad years without question — and they are accustomed to those ups and downs — but I think the worry is this might be an extended down."

After a month that's seen local ski resorts struggle to open runs, Davies admitted this weekend's expected 20 centimetres of much-needed snow won't do much more than dust the barren lower elevations.

More importantly, however, has been the return of sub-zero temperatures, he said.

Freezing conditions allow Cypress to take advantage of its recently purchased array of 59 artificial snow cannons, each with a mini-weather station to adapt to conditions. 

Each night this week, Davies said the high-tech system has pumped out more than six million litres of snow onto the resort's runs, and runs day and night except when temperatures climb for a few hours after midday.

It's an expensive investment, but one Davies said will become increasingly essential to overcome warmer winters. So far this year, he said the resort has created 130 million litres of artificial snow.