(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Skiers at Solitude Mountain Resort, Thursday December 21, 2017.
It has been a rockier start to the winter season than Utah ski resorts would like.
“I’m looking out my office window and it looks like winter again, you know, where the last few days, it hasn’t,” said Sherri Harkin, Solitude Mountain Resort communications manager, via phone Thursday. “So it’s great to see.”
A storm dropped inches of snow on the mountains Wednesday, but the snowpack is still lower than average, according to National Weather Service hydrologist Brian McInerney, who called the amount of snow “grim.” The water supply is OK, he said, but the weather pattern is hurting the ski industry.
“Obviously, especially the more robust skier, is really disappointed that 100 percent of everyone’s terrain isn’t open and that there haven’t been a lot of powder days so far,” said Connie Marshall, the director of marketing and public relations for Alta.
But she’s optimistic that the snow will fall.
“It’s going to come,” she said. “We just need to be patient.”
In the meantime, Alta is resorting to more creativity and resourcefulness.
The snowmaking team is running numerous snow-making machines, and also is taking it from the parking lot to thinner spots and hand-shoveling it onto the mountain, she said. And the avalanche crew used bombs to bring snow down to create ribbons so more experienced skiers could hike out to other runs, she said.
On a typical opening day, Alta would have more runs and lifts open than it did this year on Dec. 1. This year, the resort opened with two top-to-bottom runs off of two lifts, she said. And the resort is opening its Supreme Lift on Saturday, which will open up much more terrain — “20 to 30 percent more than today,” Marshall said.
Wednesday’s snow storm made the resort feel more confident about opening Supreme, but they’ve been working on opening it for weeks, filling in weak spots, according to Marshall.
Since Alta opened, the resort has been taking precautions, loading every other chair on the lifts to conserve what snow the mountain had, she said.
But more snow is forecast to fall on Friday, ahead of the holiday weekend, “an important week for the ski industry,” according to Ski Utah’s Communication Director, Paul Marshall.
Neither Alta nor Solitude have seen many cancellations or rescheduled plans from out-of-state visitors, both Sherri Harkin and Connie Marshall said Thursday afternoon.
“They’re as hopeful as we are that the weather patterns are changing,” Connie Marshall said.
“[Solitude’s] out-of-town guests have definitely been watching the weather and hoping that things are coming in,” Harkin said. “So I wouldn’t say we’ve had a lot of cancellations but a lot of inquiries.“
Paul Marshall said he is less concerned about skiers canceling their holiday weekend plans at the resorts than people not booking later trips because of what they see while vacationing.
“Having a white Christmas or a white holiday is great for pictures and to get people motivated for long-term,” he said. That’s where the concern could lead. If people come out and visit and then they go home and tell their friends that there was minimal snow, then those March bookings, the spring break, the President’s Week bookings could be affected.“
The snowflakes will come, he said.
“It’s definitely a slower start than most,” said Paul Marshall. Last year started slow, as well, he said, but then “January turned on and didn’t turn off.”
Winters are late coming and last later into the spring, Connie Marshall said, forcing the ski industry to adapt and be creative.
“We’ll take a wait-and-see attitude,” McInerney said. “It looks like through early January it’s going to be dry, but then hopefully things will shift.”
Until then, the challenge is “being agile and creative with things,” Connie Marshall said.
“Our whole industry is based on weather,” she said. “The best marketer in the world can’t change peoples’ behavior, but you turn on mother nature and the snow, and our parking lots are full every day.”