Industry News
A ‘Hallmark-story’ came out of Northern Michigan this past weekend. Caberfae Peaks Ski Resort, a 250-acre ski area located in Cadillac, Michigan, was struggling to make snow due to inadequate power supply. It took the strength of a community to help a struggling resort get its winter season underway.
Northern Michigan has seen a good stretch of cold weather, which has been perfect for resorts to make snow. However, Caberfae’s snowmaking opportunities dwindled when the resort was experiencing multiple power outages. According to a post on Caberfae’s Facebook page, the outages were a result of old and outdated powerlines running to the resort. Not only were these outages causing Caberfae to lose precious snowmaking time, but they were also causing damage to its snowmaking equipment. The resort reached out and ended up asking their community to file complaints to Consumers Energy to try and fix the issues affecting their snowmaking.
Christmas came early this year as Consumers Energy heard Caberfae’s and the community’s plea for help. According to Caberfae, Consumers Energy responded very quickly and spent the last week working around the clock to fix the outages. The statement made by Katie Carey, Director of External Relations, explained, “The circuit is a multi-year project to increase capacity and reliability. In the meantime, we will explore short-term actions to improve reliability…” While the updates are still taking place, Caberfae was able to get their snow guns back up and running to make enough snow in time for opening day.
Caberfae Peaks was able to open on their projected opening date of December 2, 2023. The resort opened for the weekend with seven runs open and four lifts spinning. Caberfae will be closed this week Monday through Friday to maximize snowmaking and get the rest of the terrain open before opening again on Saturday, December 9, 2023.
