By Don Nelson
When I got up Sunday morning to find a few inches of fresh snow that touched up the existing base and reclaimed the bare spots, I recalled that it was just about a year ago that the snow finally started falling for the season.
During the trying winter of 2013-14, it hardly snowed at all in most of the Methow until February, and then it hardly stopped. Before then, however, skiing events were cancelled or moved as Methow Trails worked hard to keep about half its groomed system open, mostly in the Mazama area.
Last February’s white bounty helped salvage the tourism and recreation season, but it was a relatively lean winter for the valley — which was then compounded by the economic setbacks related to the summer’s Carlton Complex Fire.
This winter has been a different story. Ample snow and manageable travel conditions have kept the visitors coming. If only anecdotally and by observation, the valley seems to be busy. A couple of noteworthy indicators — hotel/motel taxes and retail sales taxes collected in the valley — point to a strong season.
But while daytime spikes in temperatures aren’t that threatening to snow-related activities, they do create problems at the Winthrop Ice & Sports Rink. And as an article in last week’s News noted, problems at the rink can create a ripple of economic impacts elsewhere in the community. Concerns about the weather prompted organizers of a youth hockey tournament to cancel their event — which meant that lots of motel rooms and restaurant seats went unfilled.
Without refrigeration equipment, the rink will always be one iffy forecast away from a bad weekend. No guaranteed ice, no guaranteed visits. That’s why the final push to raise about $34,000 in local matching funds to fulfill the requirements of a state grant is so important. The grant, from the Washington Recreation and Conservation Office, will pay about half of a nearly $1 million project to provide refrigeration and other improvements at the rink. The community must come up with the other half through a combination of cash and in-kind contributions. We’re agonizingly close.
Rink supporters point out that refrigeration would make it possible to extend the skating season on both ends, generating more revenue from both local and visiting users. As an antidote to unpredictable winters, the valley needs all the predictability it can get to ensure that the Methow will continue to be a popular destination point.
A refrigerated ice rink will become an increasingly important part of the valley’s array of winter attractions. We can’t do much about the snow. But we can do something about the ice. More information about the rink refrigeration project is available at www.winthropicerink.com.
Great party
One of the great things about last weekend’s 113th birthday party celebration for the Methow Valley News — an old-fashioned variety show organized by Lauralee Northcott of the Horse Crazy Cowgirl Band — was that I was a spectator for most of it. Which meant that I got to laugh and applaud along with everyone else when I wasn’t involved in a skit or — and many of you will always regret missing this spectacle — singing. Like the folks in the audience, I hadn’t seen what the other performers were going to do. There were more than a few bust-a-gut laughs, and some wonderful musical entertainment.
So, thanks must go to Lauralee and all the incredibly talented, generous people who made the show funny, nostalgic and heart-warming; to a community that has supported us for more than a century; and to all of the Methow Valley News employees and contributors past and present who have kept the spirit of community journalism alive and well here.
