Warm weather threatens skiway events
By Gus LûBin, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Friday, January 20, 2006
The snow pile on the green rapidly melts away as unusually warm weather threatens a number of winter events planned this season.
Common sense says that you can't ski without snow and you can't skate without ice. The Special Olympics and the Dartmouth Outing Club may be forced to deal with a serious lack of both, however, as they prepare for this weekend's winter sporting events.
Conditions at the Dartmouth Skiway, which will host the Special Olympics' Upper Valley Winter Games and part of the DOC Winter Weekend on Saturday, have deteriorated on account of recent warm weather and rain, although a 10-20 inch base remains, according to the Skiway snow report.
Ski Patrol student director Paul Feingold '06 predicted that the current base, with the addition of some man-made snow, will be enough to keep open the trails involved with Saturday's events. These trails include Pass-Fail for the Special Olympics and the J-Bar area for the DOC.
Feingold acknowledged that the unfortunate ski conditions could be compounded by a chance of rain on Saturday, but he insisted that students should still come out to the events.
"Winter Weekend is an opportunity where a lot of ski patrollers volunteer to teach for free, and you don't need excellent conditions for that," Feingold said.
The DOC faces similarly unseasonable conditions at Occom Pond, where they have planned to offer free skate rentals. The skating part of Winter Weekend may be canceled if there is not enough ice, said DOC tour director Todd Golden '06.
But Golden, like Feingold, remains optimistic.
"I'm hopeful, but we're going to make the final call on Occum Pond [on Friday]," Golden said.
The DOC Winter Weekend will culminate on Saturday night with a $4 dinner at the DOC house on Occom Pond and an opportunity for night skating on the pond, weather permitting.
The average temperature this January has been approximately 36.5 degrees Fahrenheit, 7.5 degrees above the average January temperature of 29 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Weather.com. This warm weather has brought several heavy rainfalls, which might have otherwise come as snow.
The lack of snow will slow the construction of the Winter Carnival snow sculpture as well, which was scheduled to begin on Friday afternoon. With three weeks until Carnival, however, there should be enough time to build the sculpture, said sculpture coordinator Eric Klem '08.
The sculpture crew has worked with Facilities, Operations and Management to bring snow from Scully-Fahey field and Zamboni shavings from the Thompson arena to the Green for use in the sculpture.
Still, Klem warned, it will be hard to proceed if the weather does not help out.
"Let's hope it snows," Klem said.