It was sunny and beautiful at Boston Mills Ski Resort yesterday morning looking from inside the lodge. But outside it was three below zero, and Jim Dunderdale of Tallmadge was snapping into his boots to head outside.
Jim Dunderdale: I came out to have fun.
This doesn't scare you? Zero degrees?
Jim Dunderdale: Not a bit.
What is your age?
Jim Dunderdale: 81.
So you're used to this then.
Jim Dunderdale: Yes, I am.
And so is Ahman Abbai of Akron.
Ahman Abbai: I looked at the weather and saw the sun come out, and I thought everyone else was going to be out here. I've been skiing about 32 years. My children ski. I ski with people younger than him. Like Lucille is 93 years old...
Lucille isn't on the slopes this week because she injured her ankle in Florida, water skiing.
Ahman Abbai: But it's fabulous, we have a great time out here.
Boston Mills Market Manager Kim Laubenthal says these guys aren't that unusual.
Kim Laubenthal: The regulars know to come in and take breaks and dress appropriately.
Fewer teenagers out there with just t-shirts and no hats?
Kim Laubenthal: Yes, they actually wear coats in weather like this usually.
You know it's cold when the snow squeaks under foot, the gears on the lift chairs are whining, and teenagers actually don coats. Coats are a necessity for the crew that worked all night here - outside. The Mountain Manager at Boston Mills, Ron Morrison, says those hardy souls run the snow making guns that spray the water into the air that falls as snow.
Ron Morrison: We run three crews so at night.
Is it hard to fill those positions?
Ron Morrison: Yes, very hard. Very hard. You have to fund a certain person who likes to be up all night and there're not many of those.
Morrison says each snow making gun can spray as much as 120 gallons of water per minute.
Ron Morrison: Because it's multi-nozzle, it separates the molecules enough that the air freezes it harder, faster and then it drops softer. A mound like you see up there can be made in about two hours. You push that out and two hours later it's right back again. It's quite a bit of snow.
You're talking feet of snow?
Ron Morrison: Feet , oh yeah. An amazing amount.
But making snow overnight in zero degree temperatures is not all as fun and easy as it sounds. Temperatures this low will cause ice to build up on the bottom lip of the guns and workers have to climb the towers and melt them with torches.
Kim Laubenthal: Is that what you're seeing, that gun right there by the tower?
Ron Morrison: Look up there. some of them have ice coming out of the bottom of them. We call those "beards" - they grow beards real fast. Today we'll be thawing them out, hopefully getting them ready for tonight. So propane is another good friend of ours.
As we talk, a couple of kids whose school was canceled today I see are out here with their snowboards. Too cold to go to school but not too cold to hit the slopes.
Ron Morrison: I was saying that yesterday 'we'll probably be crowded with all these children.' But if they have the right equipment on the right stuff, they'll be fine. Protect your skin no doubt. But you get used to this - I love it when it's this cold.
It's all working for Matthew McCullough of Stow, who comes down a slope one a snowboard.
Matthew McCullough: This is the best terrain. It's the fastest snow. You have the most beautiful corduroy out here and for being on a race board - you can't ask for anything better than that.
More frigid weather is expected today.