Wisconsin Ski Area To Open in October With Last Season’s Snow

While we’re still about a month out from official ski resort opening dates across North America, Trollhaugen—a small ski area in Wisconsin—is gearing up for a pre-season festival where skiers can slide down snow before the lifts really start spinning.

Now decades old, Open Haugen is one part fall festival and one part rail jam. Scheduled for October 6th, the event features chairlift rides, a ski swap, and a food and coat drive. As Marsha Hovey, Troll’s marketing director, put it in a recent email, Open Haugen is a “reunion of our favorite humans.”

This is the fourth year in a row that Troll has experimented with a snow storage technique inspired by similar efforts abroad. At the end of the winter season, the operations team wraps up leftover snow , unveiling it months later to create a rail jam course for Open Haugen. The novel approach is spearheaded by two members of Troll’s operations crew—Adam Mahler and Matt "Boody" Boudreaux—who serve as the mountain manager and assistant mountain manager, respectively. Before the great snow experiments began, Troll relied on ice harvested from nearby hockey arenas.

“I have a very detailed spreadsheet of ice arena locations, the mileage from Trollhaugen, where they leave the snow, how much snow they typically have," Hovey told me over the phone last spring.

As most Midwest skiers know, snow was a bit hard to come by last winter, so Open Haugen’s stash is smaller than in previous years. The crew seems undeterred, though, and the local stoke for October skiing is unrelenting. On Friday, September 20th, registration for the Open Haugen rail jam was nearly sold out after only going live a few hours earlier. By the time you’re reading this, the coveted rail jam slots may be completely gone, but if you’d like to try your luck, you can register here.

The jam is scheduled between 12:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., with four 45-minute sessions at 12 p.m., 1 p.m., 2 p.m., and 3 p.m. Prizes include hardware, soft goods, lift tickets, and gift cards.

“We are so excited to celebrate this monumental season together and can't wait to kick it off with another amazing rail jam,” wrote Hovey.

Last season, after hosting another successful Open Haugen, Troll officially opened on November 2nd, marking one of North America's earliest opening dates. The little ski area's at the mercy of Mother Nature's many moods, so pinpointing this winter's opening date in advance is tricky, but know this: the Troll crew must be frothing to get those lifts spinning. Open Haugen's the appetizer—the upcoming ski season is the main course.

Related: Snow Savers: The Wisconsinites That Make October Skiing Possible

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