Worth skiing this holiday weekend?
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- Created on Thursday, 17 June 2010 22:10
- Written by Nathan
El Nino has hurt mountain snowpack
By R. SCOTT RAPPOLD, The Gazette
Bulletproof, icy snow on the slopes. Rocks, stumps and earthy patches exposed on runs that should be waist deep. A 25-inch base in mid-January.
What is this, East Coast skiing?
On the eve of one of the biggest skiing weekends of winter, the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, Colorado’s ski resorts are contending with a lack of snow and warmer than average weather that has conditions resembling April, rather than the heart of the season.
Snowpack in the upper Colorado River Basin, where many of the state’s larger resorts are located, is 76 percent of average. It’s 82 percent in the Arkansas River Basin.
Experts blame an El Niño weather pattern, a warming of Pacific Ocean water that has global weather impacts. Early in the season, many storms tracked to the south, dumping snow on a few southern Colorado resorts but leaving Summit and Eagle counties, home to the state’s largest and most-visited resorts, mostly high and dry.
Colorado skiers tend to be snow snobs, and the weather has meant some are staying home.
Vail Resorts, which operates the central Colorado resorts of Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone, reported last week that skier visits were down 2.7 percent from the start of the season through Jan. 7, compared to the same period the previous season. In a news release, resort officials blamed below average snowfall.
Even those doing well could use a little, or a lot, of snow. Monarch Mountain in Chaffee County had its biggest December ever, with 39,500 skier visits, up from the previous record of 38,200, thanks in large part to a series of storms that missed Summit County and hit to the south. But crowds have been lighter in January.
“Yeah, we could use a little more right now,” marketing director Greg Ralph said Wednesday.
Unlike many resorts, Monarch is 100 percent open, but he said, “We need a little fresh pow to motivate people again.”
“I wouldn’t expect the crowds this weekend that you would see on a normal MLK weekend,” Ralph said.
Trade group Colorado Ski Country USA, which represents all but Vail Resorts’ four mountains, has not yet tabulated skier visit numbers for the first part of the season.
“The snow is always helpful in getting folks to get out and ski, and given this is an El Niño year, it’s turned out to be a pretty typical El Niño year so far. We’ve had early season storms and we’ll expect to have some late season storms,” spokeswoman Jennifer Rudolph said.
The lack of snow isn’t limited to Colorado. She pointed out that in British Columbia, the site of next month’s Winter Olympics, the resort that will host freestyle skiing and snowboarding events shut down Tuesday to preserve what snow it has.
Colorado state climatologist Nolan Doesken sympathizes with skiers waiting for that epic powder day. “There’s nothing better than fresh snow, and we haven’t been getting big dumps here,” he said.
But take heart. El Niño winters are often followed by wet and snowy springs, and cold wet weather could return to the mountains next week. There was even a chance of light snow Wednesday night and today.
“Statistically, I can say hardly ever do we go more than a month without a change in patterns. But physically, I’m seeing the pattern has changed again but it isn’t immediately opening up a storm track aiming right for Colorado,” he said.
“I guess the bright part is it’s not bone-chilling cold up there.”
How much terrain is open at area resorts?
Monarch Mountain: 100 percent, 42-inch base
Wolf Creek: 100 percent, 64-inch base
Vail: 95 percent, 26-inch base
Beaver Creek: 94 percent, 29-inch base
Breckenridge: 81 percent, 46-inch base
Winter Park: 75 percent, 39-inch base
Keystone: 67 percent, 27-inch base
Copper Mountain: 63 percent, 35-inch base
Loveland: 54 percent, 35-inch base
Arapahoe Basin: 33 percent, 25-inch base
For complete snow and terrain reports, visit www.coloradoski.com. For Vail Resorts mountains visit www.snow.com.
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