00:00:08 Donatella

Hi and welcome to this podcast. I'm Donatella DeFazio, a junior at St. University and I'll be your host. Now, let's get into it.

00:00:19 Donatella

Climate change and its effects on the North Country. Whether you're in your car, at your house, on a walk, skiing, or even sitting on a beach right now, I'm sure you've heard about it. But do you really know what it is? I guess I can tell you.

00:00:34 Donatella

Climate change is the long term trends and changes in temperature and weather patterns. The main driver of climate change is us humans, specifically the burning of fossil fuels, which are coal, oil and natural gas. When these fuels are burnt or used, they release a large amount of CO2 and methane, both greenhouse gases. These greenhouse gases trap the sun's heat into the Earth's atmosphere, not allowing it to get released back into space.

00:01:02 Donatella

Now, with all this information, you're a pro. You know the basics of climate change. But why should you care?

00:01:08 Donatella

This is not just a world's problem. The effects of climate change have been seen by the everyday person, and even though it might not be affecting you directly, it is affecting others in this area as I'm talking to you right now. If you don't believe me, just listen to what Judy Fuhr and Aaron Kellett have noticed over the past few years.

00:01:28 Donatella

If you don't know Judy Furh is a trail grooming expert at Higley Flow State Park. This park is a 1115 acre State Park located in the town of Colton in St. Lawrence County and it is located on Higley flow and Warm Creek flow, which are large expanded sections of the Rocket River formed by impoundment.

00:01:49 Donatella

Now let's give Judy a call.

00:01:58 Donatella

First, this might seem like a question, but is winter your favorite season?

00:02:02 Judy

Ironically, yes. Winter was always my favorite season because I love to cross country and to Alpine ski. As I've gotten older and I'm 75 now. The seasons is more evened out and my preference. Some health issues have restricted my Alpine skiing, so without that to look forward to in the winter. I love Summers because of the water, the kayaking, the swimming.

00:02:32 Judy

I love spring because of the freshness and the rebirth of everything and I love the crispness and coolness and the beauty of fall. So I love all seasons.

00:02:43 Donatella

Yeah, I used to, well, I ski raced all the way up until the end of high school, but I still love to go skiing and everything. I'd say winter is definitely my favorite, but I do also like the others. The only thing I don't like about spring is the rain.

00:02:59 Judy

Well, and what I don't like are those little mini transfer seasons, which have gotten shorter and shorter with climate change. Where we go from winter to mud season to spring. Now we almost go winter to summer. And things have changed so.

00:03:19 Donatella

They definitely have. What are the most popular snow activities that you prepare for?

00:03:26 Judy

We prepare primarily for cross country skiing and snowshoeing on a groom surface at the park. Those are primarily what we work on.

00:03:38 Donatella

Great. And how long have you been working and helping out at Higley Flow State Park?

00:03:43 Judy

Since 1993. A year or two.

00:03:46 Donatella

OK, how did how did you get involved?

00:03:50 Judy

Purely accidentally, we went up to the park, went up to the park looking for somewhere to cross country ski. At that point, the only thing being groomed at all was a little bit on the road because the Saint Lawrence team was using it some to train.

00:04:08 Judy

We started dressing, skiing there and the what was known now as the Warm Brook Trail sort of existed and we kind of helped trim that out some and make it more skiable, and then we bought a couple of personal sleds and ended up putting them up in the park we St.

00:04:31 Judy

It was called a tidd tech groomer, a 4 foot, tidd tech groomer. We actually copied that. Made one of our own- similar to it and kept it at the park and we started grooming the roads with those and also the Warm brook Trail.

00:04:48 Judy

And then there's one thing leads to another is like, well, there's a woods Rd. over here here, over near the road and but then they can be connected back to our books that became overlook.

00:05:00 Judy

Then there was one along the roadside, on the other side. That can be another trail we had to develop that and that became what's now old pine and then new pine. It just when the ice storm hit, basically everything came down in 98, the trees fell to the open areas. The open areas were the trails, so the park did a tremendous amount of work just to clear the trails again, and some of them were so bad that it didn't look like they would ever get cleared. So we developed another trail, which they call new pine to bypass the other one, which now is also back in operation and then there were potentials for trails beyond that which became the Cedar brook network. And then there were hills beyond that, and the state Lawrence is looking for a place to train, and that became the Racket Ridge Trail, the steeper trails, so that became developed, so it was just a, it was a continual growth process up until probably 2012 or so, most of those trails were developed, and then it became there was nothing for teally close by for ranked beginners or for people who are challenged or older folks. So that became the easy, and then, well, it's not quite long. So then we extended the easy trail and then connected it with everything else. So.

00:06:39 Judy

So that was the last one and that was more years ago than I would think, but probably 8 years ago or so. So yeah, it's been a gradual progression in the development of the trail.

00:06:53 Donatella

Yeah, well, that's incredible.

00:06:55 Judy

And around 2003 or so, the friends group was formed with the idea of originally of helping maintain the trails and with the goal of thinking that at that point there were no bathrooms and so it was fairly mostly guys who came to ski and, you know, for women not the time so. We talked about that before and put out and then talked about having a place where people could actually go in and get warm and use bathrooms.

00:07:28 Judy

There's going to be a a little warming hut at 1st and it by the time you get done designing and everybody talking about it, it got bigger. It still can be bigger than it is, but it became a combination Nature Center and in the summer and lodge in the winter.

00:07:45 Judy

And so 2014 that was finished and at that point then we started getting the mothers coming and the wives coming and after that, shortly thereafter that we started the mothers and fathers being some of the kids.

00:08:02 Judy

That developed a kids program called the Ermines and also a school program. Again, it just is kind of a an evolutionary thing.

00:08:13 Donatella

Yeah, I mean, that sounds really awesome. What you guys have been doing kind of talk me through how you maintain the snow during the winter.

00:08:22 Judy

As climate change has progressed, it's become more challenging. So if you get limited snowfall and we can, it depends on the type of snow you have. When we can groom.

00:08:35 Judy

If you're lucky in the fall or early winter, you get the very wet packing snow and that packs down really well and makes a great base.

00:08:44 Judy

If you don't have a fall off immediately like we did last year, if you don’t have it taken away, that provides a nice base for any snow on top of it. It also provides a layer of insulation between the ground and the snow that comes beyond it.

00:09:03 Judy

So that's the ideal situation. If you get that kind of snow, you can at least flatten it with about 4 inches or so if you get powdered snow, the light, fluffy stuff that has very little water content in it.

00:09:18 Judy

If you step on it, it drops down to nothing. When you groom it drops down pretty much to too so it can take 8 inches before you can really groom. And so it varies.

00:09:32 Judy

It varies totally with the type of snow we have. But the roller we use because it does not pack it does not push snow out. So we use that if we don't get much snow, like if we get 4 inches or so and we really are trying to save it and build a base, packed snow will last longer than unpacked snow.

00:09:50 Judy

So we'll go around with a roller and we'll pack every inch that we get. And the same is true on the roads. Problem being that ff the roads got to get cold enough to to keep the snow once they get cold, must keep it. You can ski on very little snow on the roads because they're smooth, but again, if should you breakthrough that snow that blacktop underneath the stop is very sudden, so and the landing is very hard so, we try to avoid that.

00:10:19 Judy

And definitely the quantities are going down. We kind of jokingly say we have a friend who moved here about eight years ago and that was the last good snow year we had and everybody here since it's gotten. A little worse and a little worse and a little worse. And they moved here from Alaska with the idea of having snow here. But it's gotten less snow and when we do get it, we lose it like we it's difficult to tell how much snow we get in the season because we especially like last year we got it 0ne day. We groomed. It was a great afternoon that people got to ski. And the next day it was, you know, 50° and gone.

00:11:03 Judy

So it was, it was very challenging but it is definitely gone down. There been less substantial snowfalls. It's been probably, I don't know, three years since we got like, a good nice 2 foot snowfall that you could deal with. But really, I had to work with.

00:11:28 Judy

If we get 8 or 10 inches, it's very impressive for these days. But, it typically it's more like we get an inch or two a couple inches a night actually is perfect because it renews the surfaces constantly, but that doesn't happen that often either.

00:11:50 Judy

It's more ups and downs more extremes. And yet the and we never get the extreme cold. I don't think we had a day last year, a night last year that went below 0, and we've always had, you know, the 20-30 below and not anymore.

00:12:06 Judy

And but we have a lot more of the 15 to 21 day and 50 the next days, so it's the up and down, up and down. And I think it happens all year long. We just don't notice so much of the summer when it's a 50° day or 80° day. Doesn't affect things as obviously as it does in the winter.

00:12:33 Donatella

Definitely not, no.

00:12:35 Donatella

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I feel like so I'm a junior now at St. Lawrence but I remember my freshman year was like at least a week where it was freezing like they would tell you not to spend more than 10 minutes outside, and there was always snow on the ground.

00:12:50 Donatella

Then I feel like these past two years or hasn't been nearly as much.

00:12:54 Judy

Yeah. Yeah, we're currently hoping that. We know the climate change is certainly changing things, affecting things, but we're kind of hoping that this is a this is an extreme. This is a blip on the radar. That things will settle down a little bit. We're trying to do everything we can.

00:13:15 Judy

The difficulty with cross country skiing is that you don't have snow making like at an Alpine area. Now almost all Alpine areas have snow making because they have to. And cross country, that's very difficult to do because the trails are all over the place. You don't have a water source to go over 10 miles of trails and you do it in a ski area, but it's different for starting. You know that the monetary part is. But we have a great group of volunteers, fortunately that we share the grooming with my husband and I did it for years, along with usually somebody from St, Lawrence  has been on the grooming team.

00:14:05 Judy

And but lately we've actually, we've expanded that with the idea for succession down the road to have more people involved and we've got some, some great volunteers of help.

00:14:15 Donatella

That is great. So if you wanted to get involved, how would you get involved with that?

00:14:20 Judy

Actually, if you want to get involved, just e-mail me at judy.fuhr@higleyfriends.org and let us know that you're interested.

00:14:32 Donatella

I've said it before and I will say it again. This is not just a world issue, but our issue. Climate change is not only affecting the larger population, but even your neighbors. I mean, you heard Judy fewer.

00:14:46 Donatella

Temperatures have been rising all over the world, including in the St. Lawrence County. According to the New York weather data in 1990, that might seem like a long time ago, especially for me, since I was not even born yet. But the average temperature in December was 26.6°. More recently, in 2023, it was 31.7°. A difference of almost 5° / 33 years.

00:15:12 Donatella

This might not seem like a lot, but just imagine walking outside and it's 35° instead of 30. Under 32 at 30° you'd be freezing. Literally freezing, but at 35° it would feel like summer in the winter.

00:15:29 Donatella

This temperature increase goes hand in hand with the increased precipitation from 1901 to 2000. The average precipitation in December was 3.06 in 2023, it was 4.81.

00:15:44 Donatella

You might be thinking more precipitation, more snow. That's great. But since the temperature is increasing, that really just means more rain and storms, which nobody and I mean nobody wants in the winter.

00:16:00 Donatella

Now that you've heard from a smaller park in the St. Lawrence County, let's take it up a notch to a larger ski resort.

00:16:07 Donatella

Erin Kellett is the general manager at Whiteface Mountain in Wilmington, NY. If you’ve never been to Whiteface, it is awesome.

00:16:23 Donatella

So Aaron is winter your favorite season?

00:16:26 Aaron

Yeah, it is definitely.

00:16:28 Donatella

Yeah, mine's.

00:16:29 Aaron

I mean my whole life has been revolved around skiing since I was probably 11 years old. Probably. All I really wanted to do. Found a way to ski as often as I could in my entire life. Now I’m 46. I've been doing it for a long time. I love it.

00:16:52 Donatella

Yeah, that's awesome. Are you a New York native?

00:16:55 Aaron

I am yep to grow up right around Plattsburgh area.

00:16:58 Donatella

My father started working at Whiteface Mountain in the 1980s after the Olympics and I came up as much as I could so.

00:17:09 Donatella

So is whiteface like your home mountain?

00:17:10 Aaron

Yeah, it is definitely. I learned to ski at a little place in Plattsburgh called near Plattsburgh called Bear Town, but I moved up to Whiteface and have been here for since 25 years is working out lately. So been around for a long time, yeah.

00:17:28 Donatella

Yeah. So how much snow do you typically see throughout the year?

00:17:33 Aaron

Well, you generally receive around 200 inches on average and it's been consistent throughout the past couple years, with the exception of last year, last year we saw a lot of rain.

00:17:48 Donatella

Yeah.

00:17:50 Aaron

And it was challenging.

00:17:51 Donatella

Yeah, I can imagine. So talk me through what you do at Whiteface to prepare for this. Now, like before the snow even comes.

00:17:59 Aaron

Well, you know, it's funny that you bring that up because we start in October. We also operate the Veterans Memorial Hwy. on top of Whiteface. So we actually have a toll road that goes right to the top of the mountain and we open from basically mid-May till mid-October.

00:18:17 Aaron

So we start putting our snow plows on that our trucks in October, whenever we see any sort of snow 'cause, sometimes we have to plow the road just to get to the top of the mountain for the for our summer operation. So.

00:18:27 Donatella

Yeah.

00:18:32 Aaron

No, really. A lot of people will ask, you know, what do you do in the off season? Do you still work at the ski resort when the ski resort is not open? We’re either skiing or we're getting ready for skiing. So that's kind of what we do in the offseason and we do have we do have summer operations. But really, the focus of what we do is getting ready for the next ski season.

00:18:57 Donatella

And so during the ski season, how do you maintain this snow levels?

00:19:02 Aaron

Well, on the hil we rely on snow making.

00:19:05 Aaron

We aren't able to rely on Mother Nature to supply us with natural snow. We do get some and some years are better than others. You know just where we're at with climate change and you know everything. We can't rely on natural snow to facilitate or to really provide enough to be a ski resort so we have to have a very robust snow making system.

00:19:29 Donatella

Yeah. And so has your snow making change throughout the years? Like you know, from all the time you've been working there or, you know, your dad's been working there. Have your snow guns changed at all?

00:19:44 Aaron

Oh yeah, yeah, the, the industry as a whole is changed drastically. Until like probably around the mid 2000s, maybe early 2000s, we relied very heavily on low energy snow making equipment. The technology wasn't really that stable for low energy snowmaking equipment, so.

00:20:08 Aaron

Really, until we started investing quite heavily in modern, efficient snow guns, probably around 2010. Prior to that, for us, we would be happy with being able to run 50 snow guns on the mountain at a time and we would be running our snow making system on air and air is just part of the process for making snow you don't turn air into. It's only water that turns to snow, so air is the process, and when you talk about snow making efficiency eliminating as much of that process component as possible is what makes snow making efficient.

00:20:53

So you know early 2000s were running 50 snow guns. We're out of air. We utilized all the air we have in our air-plant. You know 3/4 of our water capacity but. You know, now just to put it in perspective a little.

00:21:13 Aaron

We're running, you know, 150 snow guns, close to 150 snow guns and we still have more air to use, but we’re out of water so. We're finding the new equipment just helps dramatically with efficiencies vs.20 years ago.

00:21:33 Donatella

Yeah, well, that's amazing. I actually had no idea about any of that. So the more you know.

00:21:37 Aaron

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

00:21:41 Donatella

You kind of answered this already, but so how have you seen the amount of snow change throughout the years? Like basically how is climate change impacted your work?

00:21:49 Aaron

Yeah. I mean, I think back to last year and, just historically, on average we aren't seeing necessarily statistically different amounts of snowfall. You know we're relatively the same year over year, but we're what we're seeing is drastic and the same with the temperature isn't, you know, substantially different year over year. But we are seeing very, very, very, very high temperatures followed by, you know, moderately low temperatures.

00:22:26 Aaron

Instead of having consistent weather every year, it's all over. The temperatures and the precipitation, it's a roller coaster. So we aren't seeing, you know, we aren’t getting multiple weeks of cold weather anymore we're seeing a couple days of cold weather followed by 45 degrees and rain and you know, I just I remember when I was a kid I just felt like it got cold around Thanksgiving and it stayed cold until almost April?

00:22:57 Aaron

You know, we haven't seen that in a really long time. So we're getting a lot of highs and lows instead of stability. And for us, for snow making the colder it is, the more efficient you are. Where you it's easier and you rely less on air for snow making when it's cold, so anytime it's warm and we're trying to make snow, it's not as efficient as if it's, say, 10°.

00:23:26 Aaron

So there's always that but. What we're what we're having to do regularly is go back and make snow on areas that we've already made snow on the mountain because we just experienced that rain storm. So now we have to go and resurface parts of the mountain to bring them back up to good condition.

00:23:47 Aaron

So every time that we have to go back and do that, it's it costs us money and it's a challenge, so.

00:23:56 Donatella

Yeah, I mean, I can imagine that does not seem very nice to have to do that every time, but the weather actually has been crazy. The fact that it was like 70 yesterday and now it's like raining.

00:24:04 Aaron

Yeah, it's been all over the place, you know, and I, you know, just even the summers, they've been all over they went from drought to, you know, flooding in Vermont the past 2 summers, and then the year before that it was like 100 year drought or something.

00:24:28 Aaron

So it's just, there's just no consistent weather. You never know what you're going to get.

00:24:36 Donatella

No, you never know. I mean, I do know, at least when I got a white face, there'll always be snow somewhere.

00:24:42 Aaron

So yeah, we do our best to make that happen, yeah.

00:24:47 Donatella

Your actions are appreciated.

00:24:50 Aaron

No, that's good to hear.

00:24:51 Donatella

Do you see any difference between the amount of people that go skiing and you have to produce more snow? Or is it usually about the same.

00:25:01 Aaron

Well, we like to call it the backyard effect. So that is where when people have snow in their backyard in, you know, Albany and south. We will see increased visits. That’s just how it works.

00:25:15 Aaron

Our number one markets are you know they come from around the New York City, New Jersey.

00:25:20 Aaron

So when there's snow in New York City in New Jersey, people want to go skiing as our number as our #1 market. It's, it's hard for them to think about skiing when it's raining and 60°.

00:25:32 Donatella

Even though they don't know like we're pretty good at protect protecting our product and our business. But still it's hard to get into that mindset when, when it's not cold and it doesn't snow. So you know, the backyard effect is a big, big factor in our success.

00:25:50 Donatella

I totally believe that because I feel like I kind of do that to you sometimes. If I look out the window and there's no snow, I'm like, wait, do I really want to go skiing?

00:25:55 Aaron

Yeah.

00:25:59 Donatella

But then I feel.

00:25:59 Aaron

Wait, wait, wait. Can't be snow everywhere.

00:26:05

I feel like sometimes too though. If it's too cold, people will be like I'm not going.

00:26:09 Judy

It's yeah, we gaven't had that problem much past couple years, but. You know, I was just looking at the data I think yesterday just on the past few seasons and you know last year we saw like 1 cold really cold day.

00:26:26 Aaron

We're like, we start to worry about, you know, staff out on the mountain at night making snow. Water in the snow making lines freezing.

00:26:35 Aaron

And the year before that, we saw like one week straight. But I always feel like there's at least two weeks in January and February, where we are just freezing our butts off up here with -10 and 30 mile an hour wind and we haven't been seeing that either.

00:26:54 Donatella

Yeah, it's definitely cold at the top of that mountain.

00:26:59 Donatella

Ski slopes are feeling the effects in similar and different ways than Higley Flow State Park.

00:27:05 Donatella

Whiteface hasn't seen a decrease in the amount of snow they are getting, while Higley Flow State Park has, but both are noticing that it's becoming more difficult to maintain the snow due to warmer, less consistent temperatures, and both are doing everything they can to combat climate change.

00:27:20 Donatella

Whiteface has upgraded their snow guns throughout the years to be more efficient. This not only helps them produce more snow, but gives less energy and natural resources are needed. They are also helping the environment. Higley Flow State Park has adapted to climate change by changing when and how they grow based on the amount and type of snow, and similar to Whiteface they have upgraded their grooming equipment throughout the years.

00:27:43 Donatella

After hearing about what local and larger ski areas have noticed and hearing about how they are adjusting to climate change, I hope you are inspired to help. Now I know most of you won't be able to do what Judy and Aaron are doing, but you can try to reduce energy at home by recycling or simply switching off the lights in rooms you are not using.

00:28:00 Donatella

If you want to be super conservative, you can use candles instead. That was obviously a joke. We all need electricity to perform our daily tasks. You could also carpool with friends if you're all going somewhere instead of taking separate cars to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

00:28:16 Donatella

If these tasks are too small for you, then invest in renewable energy to help develop them, or even power your home and neighborhood. I know that seems extreme, but you can be part of the change to help the St. Lawrence County and to help our planet.

00:28:31 Donatella

And with that, I leave you to think about the changes you've seen throughout the years. Have you had to shovel your driveway less? Buy less salt and sand? Notice we're not getting as much snow on Christmas as we used to?

00:28:42 Donatella

Or maybe you haven't seen any changes at all. I'm literally going crazy.

00:28:45 Donatella

OK. But thank you for listening to this podcast. I encourage everyone to enjoy this winter while at last get out, go skiing either at Higley Flow State Park or at Whiteface. And if you don't know how to ski, it's never too late to learn. And thank you again to Judy and Aaron for sharing their professional experience with me.

00:29:04 Donatella

I hope you enjoyed listening and see you next time.