Westman ski season off to good start

The owner of Ski Valley in Minnedosa is reporting high traffic to the hill this year despite below average snowfall.

The winter season is on pace for better ticket sales and head counts compared to last year, Jay Klym, the owner, told the Sun in a recent interview. Klym said it’s another year of good turnout since he purchased the ski hill in 2024.

“We have had tons of first-time skiers and beginners and people trying the sport out, which is really nice to see,” Klym said in a phone call. “We had a good year last year, and we’re ahead of that this year.”

“The conditions have been really good so far.”

Jay and Elin Klym, whose background is in grain farming in the valley, bought Ski Valley in 2024, following the announcement from former owner Don Horner that he had spent his final winter operating the resort.

The hill is working with modest snowfall this season, but the owners supplemented that with snowmaking, Jay said; there’s a good base of snow that will last until the end of March, he said.

A little further up north in Westman at Asessippi Ski Hill, the conditions have similarly been good this year, assistant manager Shannon Johnston told the Sun. Johnston said the hill had good attendance during the Christmas period due to favourable weather, and is set for snow until the spring.

“We have a huge, huge base of snow here, and we’re north facing, so we are built kind-of last through April,” Johnston said in a recent interview. “The weather’s turned back around for us, which is fantastic.”

The hill was forced to close for half a week in January, along with other hills like Ski Valley, due to combined temperature and wind chill in the range of -40 C.

Competitive skiing is off to a good start for the season despite some weather interruptions, Westman Ski Club head coach Alexis Stockford told the Sun in a recent interview. The members have enjoyed a good base of snow so far for their sport.

“As far as snow conditions are concerned, we really can’t complain. The snow conditions have been very good. The snow depth has been very good,” Stockford said. “We were quite happy with the beginning of the season.”

The club was rescheduling its season-opener race for some of its members due to the previous cold weather cancellation, she said in early February. Other members were able to compete in their opener in early February at Asessippi.

The Westman Ski Club trains primarily at Ski Valley in Minnedosa, but also hits the slopes at Asessippi Resort, and Holiday Mountain Resort near Pilot Mound. Stockford said that all around Westman the conditions have been good.

As an owner of Ski Valley, Jay said that the cold snap in January was unfortunate, but the hill is still on track for more attendance than last year. The 2024-25 winter season saw high attendance, but dealt with a string of significant closures due to weather in February and March, he said.

Safety is at the heart of the matter, he said. No matter what the snow looks like, extreme cold is a deal breaker because of the risks involved.

“If anything ever happened, you got stranded on a lift, it would be too dangerous,” Kylm said. “It’s really for customer safety.”

Explaining good attendance in the two years since he bought the hill, Klym said he thinks the public may be practising habits formed since the pandemic, of getting outdoors more for recreation. He hopes the Olympics will get people interested in skiing even more this year.

“I’m hoping it does,” Klym said. “It just puts it in people’s minds, you can get out and try some of that same stuff locally.”

“I would think it would hype people up for some winter sports,” Johnston said, “just seeing what’s available out there.”

“You always wonder, are we going to get new people out because they want to try the sport, or people are going to get more into freestyle or moguls or racing because of the coverage?”

Johnston added that Asessippi installed a mogul track in late Janauary and staff are working to tweak it at the moment with help from the local ski club.

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com