Warm weather discourages winter sport participants

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Editor’s note: This story has been changed to accurately reflect the organization where Pete Bosheff is employed.

With a warmer winter than in past years, hospitality business junior Alex Mlynarek has had to travel outside of the Lansing area in search of snowy slopes. Mlynarek and his friends have traveled more than an hour most weeks this winter to find resorts with enough snow to snowboard.

But not all MSU students have been able to make the trip north, and many who relied on local ski and snowboard resorts to get their snowboarding fix are spending less time on their boards this winter.

The MSU Snowboard Club — a group of 200 to 300 students who carpool to nearby snowboarding locations in the colder months — is one group who has been limited by the weather.

“The weather has definitely taken a toll on what we’ve been doing this year,” said Lisa Wiedelman, marketing senior and president of the club.

“At least locally, a lot of the resorts haven’t been able to stay open.”

After considering the time and cost of traveling to ski resorts in northern Michigan, especially because only about half of many of the resorts are open because of the lack of snow, Wiedelman said she has decided against making the trip.

Local ski and snowboard supply shops such as Summit Sports, 2650 E. Grand River Ave., reported a decrease in sales this winter, which is directly related to the warmer weather, assistant manager Bram Rigterink said.

Rigterink said winter ski and snowboarding trips to the western U.S. have still brought customers into the store, but it has not been as big of a sale season as he had hoped for.

“For parents, if kids are growing, they still have to upgrade their stuff,” Rigterink said. “People are still buying because it’s still winter, but they’re just not buying as much.”

Hawk Island Snow Park in Lansing, which was supposed to open in December 2011, has been unable to open partly because of lack of equipment, but its opening has been further delayed because of the warmer weather, said Pete Bosheff, a principal of Urban Snow Parks LLC — a consultant group assigned to the park project.

The park, located at 1601 E. Cavanaugh Road, is intended to have areas for tubing, snowboarding and skiing. Bosheff said the warm weather prevented the park from making snow, but the team ordered two additional snow makers, which arrived yesterday.

“I think everybody is very frustrated because the anticipation was so huge,” Bosheff said of the delay.

Some MSU Snowboard Club members also are disappointed the park has not opened.

“It is a bummer because it is something people have looked forward to, especially having a place that close to go and snowboard,” Wiedelman said.

Hawk Island hopefully will be open before the end of the winter, Bosheff said, and the park might make snow this weekend, weather permitting.

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