Warm weather and low snowpack bedevil Western ski resorts

EDWARDS, Colo. (AP) — Ski resorts are struggling to open runs, walk-through ice palaces can’t be built, and the owner of a horse stable hopes that her customers will be satisfied with riding wagons instead of sleighs under majestic Rocky Mountain peaks. It’s just been too warm in the West with not enough snow.

Meanwhile, the Midwest and Northeast have been blanketed by record snow this December, a payday for skiers who usually covet conditions out West.

In the Western mountains where snow is crucial for ski tourism — not to mention water for millions of acres (hectares) of crops and the daily needs of tens of millions of people — much less snow than usual has piled up.

“Mother Nature has been dealing a really hard deck,” said Kevin Cooper, president of the Kirkwood Ski Education Foundation, a ski racing organization at Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada line.

Only a small percentage of lifts were open and snow depths were well below average at Lake Tahoe resorts, just one example of warm weather causing well-below-average snowpack in almost all of the West.

In Utah, warmth has indefinitely postponed this winter’s Midway Ice Castles, an attraction 45 minutes east of Salt Lake City that requires cold temperatures to freeze water into building-size, palatial features. Temperatures in the area that will host part of the 2034 Winter Olympics have averaged 7-10 degrees (3-5 degrees Celsius) above normal in recent weeks, according to the National Weather Service.

Near Vail, Colorado, Bearcat Stables owner Nicole Godley hopes wagons will be a good-enough substitute for sleighs for rides through mountain scenery.

“It’s the same experience, the same ride, the same horses,” Godley said. “It’s more about, you know, just these giant horses and the Western rustic feel.”

In the Northwest, torrential rain has washed out roads and bridges and flooded homes. Heavy mountain snow finally arrived late this week in Washington state but flood-damaged roads that might not be fixed for months now block access to some ski resorts.

In Oregon, the Upper Deschutes Basin has had the slowest start to snow accumulation in records dating to 1981. Oregon, Idaho and western Colorado had their warmest Novembers on record, with temperatures ranging from 6-8.5 degrees (2-4 degrees Celsius) warmer than average, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Continued warmth could bring yet another year of drought and wildfires to the West. Most of the region except large parts of Colorado and Oregon has seen decent precipitation but as rain instead of snow, pointed out NOAA drought information coordinator Jason Gerlich.

That not only doesn’t help skiers but farmers, ranchers and people from Denver to Los Angeles who rely on snowpack water for their daily existence. Rain runs off all at once at times when it’s not necessarily needed.

“That snowpack is one of our largest reservoirs for water supply across the West,” Gerlich said.

Climate scientists agree that limiting global warming is critical to staving off the snow-to-rain trend.

In the northeastern U.S., meanwhile, below-normal temperatures have meant snow instead of rain. Parts of Vermont have almost triple and Ohio double the snowfall they had this time last year.

Vermont’s Killington Resort and Pico Mountain, had about 100 trails open for “by far the best conditions I have ever seen for this time of year,” said Josh Reed, resort spokesman who has lived in Killington for a decade.

New Hampshire ski areas opening early include Cannon Mountain, with over 50 inches (127 centimeters) to date. In northern Vermont, Elena Veatch, 31, already has cross-country skied more this fall than she has over the past two years.

“I don’t take a good New England winter for granted with our warming climate,” Veatch said.

Out West, it’s still far too early to rule out hope for snow. A single big storm can “turn things around rather quickly,” pointed out Gerlich, the NOAA coordinator.

Lake Tahoe’s snow forecast over Thanksgiving week didn’t pan out but Cooper with the ski racing group is eyeing possibly several feet (1-2 meters) in the long-term forecast.

“That would be so cool!” Cooper said.

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Janie Har in San Francisco and Gene Johnson in Seattle contributed. Gruver reported from Fort Collins, Colorado. ___

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