Photo By Scott Sturkol | Whitetail Ridge Ski Area is shown Dec. 1, 2025, at Fort McCoy, Wis., as snow is being...... read more read more
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With snow already on the ground and more being made every day, Supervisory Recreational Specialist (Facility Manager) Alex Karis with the Fort McCoy Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation (DFMWR) said the staff at Whitetail Ridge Ski Area should be able to open the area by desired open date of Dec. 27.
“Our target goal is the 27th right now, but Mother Nature has definitely been good to us so far,” Karis said. “You know, we’ve had snowmakers running since … the 30th of November. We started making snow and we have not had to shut down yet.”
The first area to see snowmaking and preparation is the snowtubing hill, Karis said. In the past, the hill had four to five main lanes for tubers. But thanks to offseason work on the hill that last several years, Karis said they may be able to set up six to seven lanes for tubing.
“We redid the bottom of the tubing hill this year,” Karis said. “We extended that out. We don’t know how much extra snow we’re going to need. With those couple of changes, we’re ahead of the game, but we still have some work to do. And the 27th is the target date.”
Once the tubing hill is fully prepared, more effort will be put into building a snow base on the sking/snowboarding hill areas.
“The rule of thumb is for every 12 inches of real snow we get, it adds an inch of layer once the groomer goes over it,” Karis said. “So if we can get our 10- to 15-foot base down, and then you get that natural snow to come in and fluff and everything up, that makes for better skiing, better tubing conditions. It’s much safer conditions if we can get hree inches, four inches of snow here, six inches there … after we get the base layers down.”
Karis said in the 2024-25 ski area season, they had over 9,000 customers.
“We’re hoping with more natural snow this year to get back into that 12,000, 13,000 range of patrons out at the hill,” Karis said. “Our record year was the 2022-23 season with 14,465 customers. The couple of years before that is when we were averaging that 12,000 to 13,000 per season. So that's kind of like the happy zone. Obviously, you always like to set records, but it can be a little stressful too when you have that many people out there.”
Whitetail Ridge also offers cross-country skiing and snowshoe trails. Trails are groomed and free to use, but equipment is available to rent, if needed, Karis said.
The chalet and Ten Point Pub offer a warm break from outside activities. Relax inside and take advantage of the snack bar menu, which features sandwiches, appetizers, pizza, and drinks.
“So, for people who don’t necessarily want to go out in the cold, but if they still want to bring the family, we have food and beverage options inside,” Karis said. “We also have a deck that overlooks the ski hill with propane heaters out there. But we do have areas for people who might not want to come to tube or ski, and they can come and enjoy themselves at the Ten Point Pub.”
The snowtubing hill also saw had also received an upgrade earlier in 2024 when Soldiers with the Army Reserve’s 702nd Engineer Company, which is based in Johnson City, Tenn., spent six days in early to mid-August working on a troop project that “significantly” improved the hill.
In a previous news article at https://www.dvidshub.net/news/478880/army-reserves-702nd-engineers-upgrades-fort-mccoys-whitetail-ridge-ski-area-with-troop-project, Karis said the work the Army engineers completed reshaped the tubing hill in a way that will save time and effort by ski area staff.
“They brought in a lot of dirt and completed some significant excavating,” Karis said. “They helped reshape the hill and make it a little less steep.” He said there was a section of the hill that needed more dirt and was an issue when it came to snowmaking.
“There was spot where we had to fill in with between 10 to 25 feet of manmade snow on that hill,” Karis said. “But they fixed that. Now it only needs 5 to 10 feet of manmade snow.”
Combined with the work completed by the installation grounds contractor to the tubing hill in 2025, Karis said the tubing experience on Whitetail will be better than ever.
Whitetail Ridge is typically open through mid-March, weather permitting. Information about tubing, skiing, snowboarding, and equipment rental costs can be found at the web page for the area at https://mccoy.armymwr.com/programs/whitetail-ridge-ski-area.
Pine View Recreation Area facilities are open to the general public. Discounts are generally offered to military members or Department of Defense civilian employees. A visitor’s pass, military ID, or Department of Defense ID is not required to access the recreation area or Whitetail Ridge.
Call 502-898-4498 for more information. Also, keep track of hours and the latest special offers at Whitetail Ridge by visiting https://mccoy.armymwr.com/programs/whitetail-ridge-ski-area, Karis said.
Fort McCoy’s motto is to be the “Total Force Training Center.” Located in the heart of the upper Midwest, Fort McCoy is the only U.S. Army installation in Wisconsin.
The installation has provided support and facilities for the field and classroom training of more than 100,000 military personnel from all services nearly every year since 1984.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/fortmccoywi, on X (formerly Twitter) by searching “usagmccoy,” on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/fortmccoywi, and on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@fortmccoy.
Also try downloading the My Army Post app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base. Fort McCoy is also part of Army’s Installation Management Command where “We Are The Army’s Home.”
| Date Taken: | 12.09.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 12.09.2025 21:58 |
| Story ID: | 553640 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 178 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Ski area staff continue work preparing to open Whitetail Ridge for 2025-26 season, by Scott Sturkol, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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