Longer winter is eggsellent opportunity for Searchmont (6 photos)

Longer winter is eggsellent opportunity for Searchmont (6 photos)

It seems as though old man winter has worn out his welcome here this year.

However, it’s not such a bad thing for some, as the colder temperatures and the presence of snow have kept the slopes at Searchmont Resort in business through the entire month of March.

Which is why marketing and events manager Adam Hayward was able to organize an Easter celebration to wrap up the 2012-2013 ski season at Searchmont.

The Easter festivities took place on Sunday, and approximately 60 children participated in an egg hunt before hitting the slopes for the last time this season.

Searchmont will be closed until next season.

Hayward said the longer winter allowed for an extended ski season, which usually wraps around March 20th on average as the temperatures begin to climb.

“We’re not normally open this late because the weather normally closes us first,” Hayward said. “For a lot of the events we do, we’ve done them so many times before because the ski season is pretty normal. With this event, it was kind of a loop for us because we’ve never done anything like this before.”

After what was a slow start to the season, Hayward said it is tough to speculate how the resort did financially this year in terms of numbers.

Shorter winters have been an issue for management at Searchmont.

Hayward said the previous three seasons did not live up to expectations in terms of weather, as temperatures were milder than usual and snowfalls came much later than usual.

Which is why a colder month of March enabled the mountain to remain open weeks longer than in recent years.

“A season like we’ve had this year, for us, it’s helped us out a lot in the sense that the past three years before this have been really hard on us,” Hayward said. “We’ve been having winters where we haven’t even seen snow until after the Christmas holidays, and we’ve had springs where by March 15th, there’s grass everywhere and there’s no snow in the Sault.”

Hayward said the combination of the natural beauty of the Northern Ontario slopes and the sense of community are what keeps skiers and snowboarders coming back to Searchmount year after year.

As a non-profit organization, he said the goal for the 140+ staff at the resort is to maintain the status quo so the public has a venue for entertainment during the winter.

“We’re a not-for-profit organization, so what we’re really looking to do here is basically provide an outlet for people to come in the winter time, be outside and be active and provide family time. If we can do that, it’s a plus in our eyes.”