A handful of ski areas in the Mountain West announced they’re opening this week, as storms start to deliver snow and colder temperatures after a slow start to winter.
Sun Valley Resort, Brighton Resort, Park City Mountain and Jackson Hole Mountain Resort are among the ski areas setting their opening days for this week, although with minimal lifts and runs.
Brundage, Telluride, Beaver Creek, Alta, and Deer Valley also postponed their targeted openings because of insufficient snow coverage. In Colorado, several major ski areas were open starting in late October, but many still have only limited accessible terrain.
In addition to a lack of snow, warmer temperatures have thwarted snowmaking. Several ski resort web cameras showed grassy brown patches last week.
“Oh, dude, it's so bad,” said Scott Melin, a buyer at Teton Mountaineering, a gear store in Jackson, Wyo.
Even the high-elevation Teton Pass, popular for backcountry skiing, has sparse snow. That has meant fewer customers coming to Melin for mountain touring rentals or boot fittings.
“Enthusiasm has dampened quite a bit over the last couple weeks because there's just really nowhere to ski,” Melin said. “If people are stoked and it's snowing, they're more likely to buy skis.”
Typically, Evan Thayer can get in at least a few days by now in Utah’s Cottonwood Canyons. He usually racks up over 100 days in a season.
“I have yet to ski this year, which is rare for me,” said Thayer, the Utah forecaster for OpenSnow.
He puts this early season in the bottom 10% for Utah.
“This is just a little bit above the worst we’ve ever seen it for this date,” he said.
But snow this week in the northern Rockies and extending down into Utah and northern Colorado will help, said Thayer. They’re not big storms, but will bring cold air with them, allowing more snowmaking jets to operate and supplement the slopes with man-made powder.
Additionally, he noted, the vast majority of seasonal snowfall typically arrives after Dec. 1, so there’s still time for a turnaround.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Boise State Public Radio, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio and KJZZ in Arizona as well as NPR, with support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
