Quebec ski hills adapting to the warm start to winter

There's no snow in the city but in the Eastern Townships, the ski hills are covered in white and mountains are making up for lost time.

After a 20-centimetre dump over the weekend, Owl's Head ski resort is a winter wonderland.

But on the slopes at Saint-Sauveur, skiers are having to make do with artificial snow.

"I've been skiing here since I was, like, six and I've never seen this before, but it's starting to look better," one skier told CTV News.

The head of guest experience says the mountain has invested heavily in artificial snow production after several years of warm starts to the season.

"For sure, we have to adapt and we're really, really good in the ski industry to be adaptive to the weather conditions. We have an amazing operation team to produce snow, groom that snow, so right now to be honest we're not in bad shape," said Simon Page, vice-president at Les Sommets Saint-Sauveur.

Still, it's been a quieter than usual winter break. Typically, 20 per cent of the mountain's revenues come from this two-week period around the holidays and the lack of natural snow has had an impact.

"Sometimes, in the city around Montreal when people see no snow on the ground they think we are not ready for winter activities. But we have snow, so it's really to invite people to get out of the city, come have fun and play in the mountains of Quebec," Page added.

With just a few days left until work and school restart, there are still plenty of people out enjoying the slopes even if the conditions could be better.

Skiers told CTV News that the snow has been softer than usual due to the warmer temperatures. Some said they are hoping for a storm to bring a big dump of snow soon.

The good news is that it appears the winter weather has finally come to the Laurentians. It snowed there Wednesday and the mountain is expecting a couple of big snowfalls next week to kick off the season.