MORGANTOWN — If you want to take the glass-half-full approach to the weather of late, maybe consider the tubing hill at Monongalia County’s Chestnut Ridge Park.
Monongalia County Commissioner Tom Bloom said tickets for the winter amenity went on sale for the first time this winter on Wednesday.
While the hill did open to the public briefly earlier this month, tickets were not required because the tow system that pulls riders back to the top of the hill was not functioning.
“They have a ton of fresh snow. They’re going to start selling tickets for Thursday through Sunday,” Bloom explained during Wednesday’s commission meeting. “They are hoping to stay open for the next several weeks. We’ve not heard something like that before, so we’re very excited.”
As of 3:30 Wednesday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday were already sold out, but there were tickets available for two-hour slots including: 12 p.m.- 2 p.m. Thursday; 10 a.m.- 12 p.m. and 2 p.m.- 4 p.m. Friday.
Tickets are $10. Each two-hour slot is restricted to 50 people, with only Chestnut Ridge rental tubes allowed.
The tubing hill opened for the first time almost exactly one year ago, but the project was first initiated in 2019 with the purchase of a snow machine and tubing tow lift.
It was time-consuming and costly – nearly $400,000 – to get the hill sloped properly to accomodate the tow system.
Once in place, the whole setup is predicated on having the proper amount of snow.
If the snow machine is required to get to that minimum required amount, temperatures below 28 degrees are needed, meaning that after some 270 tickets were sold on opening weekend last year, the hill only operated a handful of days the remainder of the winter.
“We couldn’t even make snow, really, last year. It was just too warm,” Monongalia County Parks Director J.R. Petsko said.
So far, he’s feeling a little more optimistic about tubing prospects in 2025 – barring an unforeseen heatwave.
“With all this cold weather, I’ve made feet of snow over the last couple days on top of all the natural snow we have,” he said. “We’re hoping to keep it open for a while.”
The easiest way to access information about the status of the tubing hill is through the Mon County Parks and Recreation and Chestnut Ridge Park Facebook pages. You can also call the park at 304-594-1773.
Tickets for each weekend become available at noon on Wednesday and are available at moncountyparks.com.
