Homer’s Kachemak Ski Club completed their annual inspection of the Ohlson Mountain rope tow facility on Sunday, Dec. 1 and will hold their pre-season board meeting at Grace Ridge Brewery on Dec. 5 at 5 p.m. The meeting is open to members or people who are interested in becoming members of the club.

The inspection was conducted by local engineer Eric Stubin and partner Bill “Pinky” Morris. The annual inspection is required by the Department of Labor and looks at all of the mechanical gear, the sheaves and actual rope equipment, the communication systems and the buildings at the facility, board president Randy Wiest said. Typically the inspectors will have a few suggestions for things that might need attention. The facility passed the inspection and will receive a certificate from the state of Alaska.

During the annual meeting, the organization will go over bylaws and elect new board members, Wiest said. There will be pizza provided and a no-host bar from Grace Ridge.

The rope tow doesn’t have a set opening day because it depends on conditions of the snow on the hill. Weist said that with the one heavy, wet early snow day in November, there was some indication that the hill would have gotten a good early base layer to offer an earlier start season.

But, as of Sunday, conditions didn’t seem ready, he said. He said that over the past two years he has taken on mowing the major runs on the hill so that the facility could open earlier instead of waiting for snowfall to cover the fireweed and other vegetation.

This year the hill needs another 6-12 inches of snow before they can open, however, when he conducted the safety inspection, Wiest said, there were signs of people using snowmachines to tow skiers to the top of the hill.

This pre-season hill use is not encouraged by the board. Weist said he hopes conditions will be ready by the start of the Christmas break.

The Kachemak Ski club was founded in 1948 and is one of the oldest nonprofits in the community of Homer, Wiest said. The Ohlson Mountain facility opened in the early 1970s but the club operated in other locations prior to that, including one site on Diamond Ridge.

“The real father of the rope tow facility was Bob Moss, who was a commercial fisherman,” Wiest said. He noted that the commercial fishing community is an important base of the membership and board because of their technical expertise to help manage the rope, pulleys and mechanical gear. “It’s a real community connection that we rely on.”

Weist said he’s especially proud of the fact that they have not increased membership fees in the past 20 years.

“The club’s board philosophy is that we want to keep the cost barrier for learning to ski low in Homer. If you live in Homer, you ought to get comfortable with snow sports of some sort. We represent the alpine ski and snowboarding part of learning a snow sport.”

Some typical features for the season will include World Telemark Day in March, the Bank Slalom and the Rowan Springer Slush Cup at the end of the season that Weist said “is always a real crowd-pleaser.”

This year the club is adding some terrain park features that Wiest referred to as “a box top, rail and table top.” These are items that skiiers or snowboarders can jump off or use for conducting freestyle activty.The idea for these came from new board member Kelsey Haas and have been coordinated with assistance from Gus Cotton and Tucker Weston. Weston provided welding for the project, Wiest said. Wiest said these new equipment features are still in the shop getting the final touches added to them and will be ready for installation soon.

Wiest said Haas has also been instrumental in lining up ski instructors for the upcoming season and that one idea she’s provided is a lesson for parents to help them teach their children to ski. Haas will be providing a lesson on how to be an ski instructor that is tentatively scheduled for Jan. 12. More information on that will be forthcoming on the Kachemak Ski Club website.

The annual Warren Miller ski movie that typically takes place at the Homer theater in November had to be postponed due to theater sale and renovations. It is now tentatively scheduled for Feruary 11 pending reopening of the theater. This event is a fundraiser for the ski club.

“We’re looking forward to a big season and generally we can count on being open between the end of December and middle of April. That’s our goal,” Wiest said.