The Upper Peninsula’s Marquette Mountain is having to play catch-up after it was revealed this past weekend that their snowmaking equipment was vandalized sometime in November.
The incident, which authorities believe occurred sometime three weeks ago, involved some hater chopping locks off the pumphouse door and sabotaging the equipment in such a way that made Maquette Mountain General Frank Mallette believe the perp was someone familiar with the system.
“There’s no way to prove who or what, or what they knew, but they opened a particular valve that caused our system to blow out,” Malette told Marquette, Michigan’s Mining Journal. “Had somebody been close by, it would have done significant harm to them,” he said.
Malette is speculating that the incident may have involved someone unhappy with the mountain’s recent transition to new management, but neither he nor the police were willing to discuss that theory at length. An investigation is ongoing.
Snowmaking operations will run non-stop for the next 35-40 days, he told the Mining Journal, with additional personnel on-site at all times to deter further vandalism. According to a post by Malette on the mountain’s website, it plans to open the intermediate Snowfield Run on Saturday, December 8.