Apex Mountain, near Penticton, B.C., had its first snowfall over the Oct. 11 weekend, as the popular ski destination gears up for the season with new permanent snowmaking equipment.
The webcams atop the mountain showed a layer of white caked across the ski slopes, and about seven centimetres of snowfall over the previous 48 hours as of Oct. 13.
That’s still a long ways off from the usual snowbase, but with temperatures at around -5C in the morning, conditions are right for snowmaking.
In a post to social media ahead of the weekend, Apex Mountain Resort general manager James Shalman shared that new permanent snow-making gear had been purchased and set up for the upper section of the Ridge Run.
The ski resort uses mobile cannons elsewhere across the resort, including for building up for the high traffic routes such as the Okanagan Run.
“Snowmaking helps build our Tube Park, beginner Magic Carpet terrain, terrain parks, freestyle and alpine training venues and now with the new guns will give us a snow cache that we will build up to use later in the season if required,” said Shalman.
In addition, like past favourable seasons, the coming winter is expected to be a wet and cold La Nina year, if a weaker one than the usual. La Nina is one of the major seasonal weather patterns, the counterpart of the hotter and drier La Nino, and is caused by colder than average temperatures of the Pacific Ocean.
New permanent snow-making gear installed at the top of Apex Mountain’s Ridge Run in 2025. James Shalman / Facebook
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