UTICA, N.Y. (WKTV) - After weeks of speculating when, or if, tubing would take place at Val Bialis; the questions were answered.  Thursday was the official first night.
    
The project manager for the hill Bill Smith,  said they would have loved to have been open on their target date, of Christmas week, but it simply came down to bad luck.  "The weather didn't hold out for us, it was the wrong time for everything," Smith said.  "It would be too cold certain times and the equipment wouldn't run, and other times it was too rainy and muddy."

Thursday night there were ten tubing lanes open.  "We made a lot of snow," Smith said.  "We have a three or four foot base of snow, and as long as the weather holds out we can still continue to make more snow."

Smith believes the best part of tubing at Val Bialis is the fact you don't have to walk back up the 60-foot hill.  Instead you can ride the magic carpet.  The magic carpet is a conveyor belt type machine, that will pull you up the hill.

Smith estimates the tubing hill will be open until March, and hopes the ski lift will open this weekend.

Tubing tickets are $18 dollars.