If you wanted to experience snow in Florida, your chance will have to wait a bit longer.
Snowcat Ridge Alpine Snow Park is closing for the season Monday after opening on Nov. 20.
Florida’s first snow park can only operate while temperatures remain low enough to keep the snow frozen.
“We’re closing our season early on Monday, January 18th,” a company official said. “It’s not due to permitting, but we’re a weather-dependent park and getting ready for our next season.”
Snowcat Ridge’s opening was met with much excitement as Floridians got to snow tube, build snowmen and make snow angels for the first time in the Sunshine State.
It didn’t come without some challenges though.
Within days of opening, the park found itself running out of snow and had to adjust days and hours of operation to produce more snow to accommodate the influx of guests.
“Since opening, we have had an overwhelming amount of interest and guests at the park to the extent that we misestimated the amount of snow production, which was required to allow the larger number of kids (and adults) to play in the snow inside the Arctic Igloo” officials said on Facebook.
Less than a month after opening, Snowcat Ridge was shut down due to health and safety violations.
Inspectors issued violations to the snow park concerning its use of temporarily modified shipping containers in the Alpine Village, the company said.
The Pasco County’s inspection office released photos that showed exposed electrical boxes, unpermitted plumbing and structural issues with the attraction’s front entrance, which features stacked shipping containers.
Within a day, the snow park was able to fix the issues and reopen.
“After reading the report, we understand the list of concerns, with the majority of the points pertaining to the temporarily modified shipping containers in our Alpine Village,” Snowcat Ridge officials said on Facebook. “Our team worked all day yesterday and through the night to come to a resolution on these issues with Pasco County. We believe we’ve handled everything on the report and have requested an inspection today with Pasco County in hopes of receiving approval to re-open the park.”
A short drive from Central Florida, the snow tubing park is where you could find yourself plummeting down a 60-feet tall snowy slope or frolicking around a 10,000-square-foot arctic igloo snow dome building snowmen and castles.
A Snowcat Ridge official said the park will reopen in November but the exact date is to be determined.
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Snow tubing at Snowcat Ridge in Dade City, Florida is now open.