SNOW FUN
Snow Tubing Offered at Half of Midwest Ski Areas

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The heart-wrenching scene used to happen regularly in the parking lot at Paoli Peaks Ski Area in Indiana. A family would show up with its own sleds hoping to go sledding, only to be turned away, leaving their children in tears. But now Paoli Peaks has met the demand of its customers and this season has become one of the latest Midwest ski areas to offer a lift-served snow tubing hill where people can slide on an oversized inner tube.

Paoli Peaks isn't alone. At least five other Midwest ski areas have added lift-served snow tubing hills for this season, including Cannonsburg and Otsego Ski Club in Michigan, Snow Creek in Missouri and Mad River Mountain and Snow Trails in Ohio. About half of all Midwest ski areas now offer snow tubing, sort of a winter cousin to water slides. Existing snow tubing operations are also dramatically increasing their capacity. For example, Minnesota's Elm Creek Winter Recreation Area in only its third year of operation has already more than doubled its number of lanes, added a second lift and increased its tubes from 300 to 600.

"You immediately see the joy on people's faces," says Wayne Iseri, who runs the snow tubing hill at Elm Creek. "And you hear them yelling and having fun all the way down the hill. We knew it would be popular, but it's been even more popular than we thought. There has been such a huge demand for it."

The snow tubing hill at Elm Creek is about 900 feet long with 80 feet of vertical drop and features 20 "lanes" or chutes that are separated by snow berms. To ride back up, snow tubers simply stand on one of two surface conveyor lifts, which are similar to a moving sidewalk. Snow tubers can purchase two-hour passes for $12. "Families with young children have been our main business," says Iseri. "But now we're also bringing in a lot of groups from churches, Scouts, schools and businesses." In part because of the success of the snow tubing hill, a spacious new timber-and-fieldstone lodge has been built at Elm Creek with a cathedral-style ceiling and large glass windows overlooking the area.

Sunburst Ski and Recreation Area in Wisconsin was one of the pioneers in snow tubing, opening its tubing hill about a decade ago. "People are sliding at up to 40 mph, and they love the speed and the sheer joy of sliding on snow," says Meg Sedgwick, who helps run the tubing hill at Sunburst. "And even though they get a thrill, they know it's not a difficult activity."

The snow tubing hill at Sunburst is about 900 feet long, with 100 feet of vertical drop, and features 12 lanes. Two handle lifts, specially designed for snow tubes, attach to lanyards on the tubes and pull riders back up the hill as they are sitting on their tubes. Snow tubers can purchase 2-hour or 3-hour passes.

Sunburst has also turned its snow tubing hill into a laboratory for local high school students to study the laws of physics. "Science students have done projects on the physics of roller coasters for years," says Sunburst general manager Steve Voss. "So we worked with a retired physics teacher to develop a winter program, using our snow tubing hill." More than 2,000 students from about 20 Wisconsin and Illinois high schools take half-day field trips to Sunburst, where they learn first-hand about force and coefficient of friction, kinetic energy, instantaneous speed and other laws of physics. "The kids love it," says Voss. "They're having fun and learning something too."

Paoli Peaks is calling its new snow tubing hill "Arctic Blast," and marketing director Brandy Ream is thrilled that pent-up demand will be met. "We've been wanting to add snow tubing for several years," she says. "We were getting at least five phone calls a day all winter. There was definitely a demand for it." Although Paoli Peaks is in Indiana, many of its customers come from Louisville, Kentucky, which is less than an hour away and some even make the three-hour-plus drive from Nashville, Tennessee.

At Ski Snowstar Winter Sports Park in Illinois, which even changed its name to reflect the growing popularity of snow tubing, it's a sport for the entire family. "We thought our snow tubing hill would be a magnet for kids," says Don Steffen, director of skier services. "But what has surprised us is the number of teens, parents and event grandparents. The grandparents are having as much fun as the grandkids."

In Minnesota, Buck Hill general manager Don McClure sees his 10-lane snow tubing hill as a way to "reach out to more of the population and introduce them to the excitement of winter sports." McClure says snow tubing is "open to 90 percent of the population from age 5 to age 90. You don't need any skills or special equipment. It's another way to enjoy winter, and it's fast enough to get a thrill, but not scary or generally dangerous. Our snow tubing has been wildly popular."

Many ski areas also see their snow tubing hills as a way to entice visitors into trying skiing or snowboarding. "We're getting them on the hill and they're enjoying the ambience of being at a ski area," says Sunburst's Sedgwick. Or as Steffen of Ski Snowstar puts it, "After tubing, they're sitting in our lodge having a hot chocolate and they see all the fun that people are having skiing or snowboarding, and then they want to try it." Echoes Iseri at Elm Creek: "We are seeing crossover. We know that kids are on the tubing hill and they look over and see our ski area and other kids having fun in the terrain park, and we know they're going to try it and become future snowboarders and skiers."

For a list of Midwest ski areas with snow tubing, click here.