June 13-15, Far West Ski Assn. Palm Springs and Climb San Jacinto

[ChrisC]

Driving from Mammoth May 9 I got a call from Jane Wyckoff, Far West Ski Association Convention Chairperson. FWSA awarded me the Bill Berry Hard News Award for 2025

Are you writing for any other publications recently?

 

[ChrisC]

“In the case of the Western United States, I push back and say strongly — our children and grandchildren are going to be enjoying these same ski areas with, overall, not very different conditions than we’ve seen in our times.”

I forget -- do you have a complete list of the "less snow-sure" western ski areas (beyond the SoCal ones) that in all likelihood will be significantly affected? I can think of a few off the top of my head but I'm sure there are others.

I assume quite a few of the Northwest/PacWest ski areas will be impacted if snow levels move 500-1000 ft higher in 50+ years.

Quite a few are on the brink already in some storms:

• Snoqualmie/Alpental - very problematic
• Crystal - base
• Mt Baker - base
• Mt Hood Ski Bowl - very problematic

Stevens Pass is able to pull eastern cold air through its pass, so it might be a little less impacted. I don’t have observations about inland area resorts, but all might suffer at their bases a bit.

Tahoe too will get impacted at resorts that have base areas at Lake Level 6200 ft:

• Squaw Valley base
• Homewood base
• Northstar base
• Diamond Peak/Incline

 

[Tony Crocker]

The number of western locations that are in middling elevation range and have total water vs. total snow data is small. And for those with rising water vs. snow numbers, there is generally not a measurable decrease in snowfall yet. It will be relatively easy to publish here what I presented at FWSA, hopefully within a week or so.

The Northeast is the other way around. The aggregate snowfall numbers are declining some but the specific locations with total water vs. snow are increasing very gradually, though the absolute numbers are high, and extremely so in shoulder season.

do you have a complete list of the "less snow-sure" western ski areas (beyond the SoCal ones) that in all likelihood will be significantly affected?

Below I compare lift served altitude range with adjustment of 275 feet altitude for every one degree of latitude for selected areas along the Pacific Coast. The numbers reflect how much higher each ski area or location is than SoCal's Mt. Baldy.

Area	comp base	comp top	comp avg
Baldy	-	-	-
Mammoth	2,383	3,383	2,883
Kirkwood	2,518	2,418	2,468
Heavenly	1,319	2,746	2,032
Palisades	1,056	1,806	1,431
Mt. Rose	2,792	2,492	2,642
Mt. Ashland	1,998	1,048	1,523
Crater Lake	2,684		2,684
Willamette Pass	1,186	649	917
Hoodoo	956	(109)	424
Bachelor	2,170	3,135	2,653
Mt. Hood Ski Bowl	133	(467)	(167)
Mt. Hood Meadows	1,076	1,753	1,414
Rainier Paradise	2,347		2,347
Crystal	981	1,982	1,482
Snoqualmie	(282)	428	73
Stevens	1,028	907	967
Baker	962	462	712
Cypress	371	285	328
Whistler	(18)	3,162	1,572

The most snow sure list is not a surprise: Mammoth, Bachelor and Whistler in top elevation, Mammoth, Bachelor and Mt. Rose in average elevation, with Kirkwood not far behind.

I was surprised some to see that SoCal is worse than Snoqualmie and only better than Mt. Hood Ski Bowl, which does have a marginal reputation for too much rain. The SoCal mountains do not get as much rain as a lot of these places, but since they get so much less snow, the rain they do get is more likely to be destructive.

So the long term data and trend I presented at FWSA for Government Camp (near Mt. Hood Ski Bowl at 3,980 feet) really was the worst case scenario.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Stevens Pass is able to pull eastern cold air through its pass

I have read that Snoqualmie also pulls in cold eastern air through its pass, but it's 1,000 feet lower than Stevens so surely more vulnerable.

Tahoe lake level is not great, but no worse than the bases of most of the Washington and Oregon areas. By the numbers the Vancouver locals like Cypress are worse. They, like Mt. Hood Ski Bowl, already have a reputation for enough rain to degrade reliability. I recall that a lot of work was needed to make Cypress' Olympic slopes in 2010 adequate even though Whistler was fine.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Are you writing for any other publications recently?

No. I have a phone call next Wednesday with Stuart Winchester of https://www.stormskiing.com/. I have no idea if it will lead anywhere. He has a comprehensive database of U.S. ski areas and I'm trying to get him to use my snow stats like https://zrankings.com/ does instead of brochure quotes.

 

[spinbackwards]

Congrats on the award.

I'm still an OpenSnow member, perhaps purely for sentimental reasons - I go back to the email list.

However I do believe, without anything other anecdotal evidence, that Joel's reports are written to favor the Vail Resorts monolith. This bothers me more and more. Separately and selfishly I blame Joel's success for the increase in skier traffic. OpenSnow is highly reliable, one can plan around the reports.

Living in Eagle, CO, for 24 years I believe it's snowing less; on-balance the ski seasons are shorter - defined as later terrain openings and earlier closings. A counter argument would be terrain openings and closings are motivated by profit.

I also believe we're getting less rain less - defined as the length of monsoon season and fire risk.

We had some moisture in May. But I recall less than a handful of irrigation rain skips. When we first moved here it wasn't uncommon to go till late May without having to run the irrigation system.

June has been high pressure and unseasonably warm temperatures. No rain skips so far. The risk of devastating fires grows greater each year. Our homeowners insurance did increase by nearly $500.00. However this could be due to a claim. It's only been the last few years that I can recall being even the least bit concerned of fires. Now it's every year.

I know we don't keep track of rain here and I'm not looking to spark a climate crisis debate. But I would like to read your analysis of the snowfall, as I know you're not sponsored.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Eagle is at 6,600 feet , so not too relevant to the ski areas. I still remember my first trip to Mammoth April 1-2, 1978 seeing 3-4 feet of snow along 395 by Crowley Lake. That is extremely rare these days despite no change in what we see and ski on Mammoth Mt.

on-balance the ski seasons are shorter - defined as later terrain openings and earlier closings. A counter argument would be terrain openings and closings are motivated by profit.

I'm 100% with the counter argument here, particularly with Vail-owned resorts. You should try to get a list of A-Basin opening and closing dates. I have some of the openings. It appears that A-Basin October openings only became common starting in 2008, which probably means they had no snowmaking before then. On the back end, aside from A-Basin nearly every Colorado resort closes for economic reasons while the snowpack is still robust. I notice that Winter Park has been expanding its closing date later over the past decade.

Joel's reports are written to favor the Vail Resorts monolith.

That would surprise me a lot. I notice he writes separate forecasts for many of Vail's resorts, but I rarely read them; I read the overall Colorado ones regularly and it has not occurred to me that there might be favoritism.

In the West nearly all resorts adhere to fixed open/close dates announced well in advance. Premature closing dates are major news, notably in the Pacific States in 2015 when Mt. Baker among others closed mid-March. Delayed openings are somewhat more common, but usually the areas make their opening dates but with just a WROD or two if it's been dry.

As some of you know, in early season I emphasize percent of terrain open as the key metric. For selected areas I have about 20 years of that data now. I have considered going through that to create an overall index of how good an area is in early season. I could look for trends there too. But I suspect that any negative weather trend is offset by snowmaking improvements so far.

 

[EMSC]

We had some moisture in May. But I recall less than a handful of irrigation rain skips. When we first moved here it wasn't uncommon to go till late May without having to run the irrigation system.

Every year is different of course. On the front range it was so cool and wet I didn't turn my system on until about 10 days into June.

on-balance the ski seasons are shorter - defined as later terrain openings and earlier closings.

I haven't noticed any change with terrain closings but I'm on Ikon pass areas where Copper and even more so Winter Park have extended to larger spring seasons. The last several years have had fall stay much warmer and drier than normal. I haven't decided if that is a new normal or if that is simply random as yet though.

However rain has become unusually more common even in the heart of winter down here in the front range.

It appears that A-Basin October openings only became common starting in 2008, which probably means they had no snowmaking before then.

That is correct. ABasin was lucky to get a couple trails open by Thanksgiving or early Dec prior to that (excepting the occasional big early snow year of course).

 

[Tony Crocker]

I suspect Denver has long term temperature and precipitation records like L.A. and S.F. do. I'll leave one of you two locals to find and analyze them. I suspect the summer southwest monsoon is extremely erratic. I'd also suggest looking for the 1950's extended drought period I've seen in data from L.A., Alta and Chile.

Meanwhile I'll stand by my quote from the FWSA event:

One could argue that the Colorado Rockies with their high altitude resort elevations are more insulated from climate change than any other ski region in the world.