A letter from our President, February 15, 2023:

To our valued guests:

I would like to thank you for your patronage. I would like to first state the obvious, that this has been a very challenging season. The stats speak for themselves:

Total snowfall as reported in the town of Glenwood:
November 33.9”
December 26.8”
January 17.3”
February 1-14 8.3”

These totals are significantly less than average. We have only had 1 to 2 periods per week where the temps afforded us marginal opportunities to make snow with one exception Feb 3-4 which we experienced ideal temps, and we made as much as our system would produce. Beginning February 5th, rain and high temps began to be a daily occurrence. During January 1 to today we also received almost 4” of rain.

We at Kissing Bridge are as unhappy with both the conditions and the slope count as our guests, however it is very difficult to do much with this weather (as its presently 62 degrees outside). The snowmaking process requires 28 degrees or colder and humidity below 80%.

Many people have made assumptions that we have given up the fight, are closing, or do not care about our guests. This is simply not true. Every fall we hire staff and make all the necessary arrangements to run the entire area, when winter does not arrive as of Feb 15th, unfortunately, you lose many of your hired employees who haven’t worked a day all season. We also have seen a great softening in skier visits especially when the weather is less than ideal. We are not alone in these challenges as most of the northeast has experienced the same issues.

Also, it was brought to my attention that some of you thought that we have abandoned our North slopes and the World of your own area; again: not true, as we currently have made snow and will continue to do
so in those areas.

I am writing this to assure all our guests that we will continue to make snow whenever the temperatures allow and when Mother Nature decides to grace us with natural snow we will open
as much as possible!

As for the modified operation, we have had to make changes as in the Tuesday – Friday 1pm -9pm schedule, which we felt gave both day and night guest opportunities with a reduced rate lift ticket. On the weekends we will be open normal hours, Saturday 8am-10pm, Sundays 8am-8pm.We will also be open this Monday, 10am-9pm in honor of the holiday.

The changes in schedule are based on skier traffic and to continue to operate we must control what we can control. We’ve needed to make these necessary changes at this point in the season largely due to the weather we are experiencing to keep skiing affordable in Western New York. Again, this is not ideal, and we apologize to those who have been inconvenienced. On the days that are forecasted for steady rain, more than likely we will close to preserve the snow that we have.

We appreciate your understanding as we deal with this unprecedented weather pattern and hope you can get out and enjoy the snow we have.

We currently are busy preparing for our biggest snowmaking expansion to date. This project is scheduled to start in May with completion by September. This expansion will basically cover all
Central slopes, which will help us combat this situation if it wherever to happen again… (let’s hope not!)

I hope this letter helps clarify any questions or concerns you may have. Think Snow!

Thank you,

Richard Fanelli
President, Kissing Bridge