Downed trees close trails at Sovereign Lake Nordic Club

Photo: Sovereign Lake Nordic Club

Vernon's Sovereign Lake Nordic Club has removed more than 250 fallen trees from its trails since heavy, wet snow wreaked havoc on Silver Star Mountain earlier this month.

The club's newsletter says "groomers are dealing with occasionally up to 50 trees a night on shift while trying to get our trails open and ready for the new day."

"Roughly every five years, we see an event such as this which persists without significant wind events to free the trees of their snow cocoons.

"Heavy coastal snow, coupled with mild temperatures, flash frosts, and an overcast sky is a perfect recipe for the overloading of trees."

Sovereign has closed its Aberdeen and Lars Taylor trails until at least Saturday to mitigate dangerous trees and remove fallen trees from the trails.

"More snow is in the forecast, so we expect to see many more come down," the club says.

The closed trails "are posing higher than an acceptable risk to our members and guests," the club adds.

All SilverStarMountain Resort connectors are also closed, excluding the Gold Mountain trail.

Silver Star has had similar headaches since the 25-centimetre dump of wet snow in the middle of the month.

There have been numerous run closures to contend with fallen trees.

As of mid-morning, Silver Star was reporting that Putnam Creek is now open.

However, the Alpine Meadows chair and terrain will remain closed today, due to high winds and fallen trees.