Blog 7: Spring Conditions in December?

This weekend was an interesting one in the fact that Stowe, probably along with other east coast mountains, experienced something that doesn't usually occur in December; and this would be the spring-like conditions. Some may put El Niño to blame, and this is most likely a correct assumption. Saturday especially, the sun was blazing down like a beach day in mid-July, and the snow quality was definitely one for the books. With the slushiness and warmth of April, it is difficult to say whether the season will take a turn for the worse, or for the better. Although with the extreme weather conditions of this weekend, it would be absurd to say that the temperatures will get warmer.

I recently brought up this concern in one of my previous posts about snowmaking and how El Niño may play a role in this freakish phenomenon. What I'm trying to say here is that mountains will absolutely have to spend more money on snowmaking. With little flakes here and there, it simply is not enough to keep mountains open until their projected closing dates. Unless mother nature flips this unnatural occurrence, I'm afraid that mountains all over may lose ridiculous amounts of money. I know that skiing conditions won't effect skiers like myself because I'll be on the mountain regardless, but the rest of the skiing population who find skiing to be more of a physical workout, may skip out on their planned vacations. I'm mainly referring to the older generations when I say this because I highly doubt that people like my 75 year old grandfather will be tearing it up all winter on those sheets of ice they call trails; or vice versa, when the ice hits 50 degree temperatures and turns into slush.

For some mountains, like Stowe, snowmaking isn't a problem because they can make up for it with their $20 burgers and $120 day passes. But other mountains like Smuggler's Notch, may suffer from this warm stretch of weather because as some of you may already know, Smuggs doesn't like to rely on machines for their snow coverage, nor do they groom their trails. So with warm weather rolling in, and rainy days every week, Smuggs may suffer financially from this bizarre weather pattern.

This is not only a concern in the east coast, but places out west as well. Let's use Mt. Hood for an example, this summer basically had zero coverage, which is rare for a mountain that offers year round skiing. Windells, a ski camp that relies on Mt. Hood for their business, was severely slacking this past summer. With a very limited supply of some of the smallest jumps I've ever seen the camp have, to the odd zig zag setup they had, the quality of the Windells park was probably at an all-time low. A few years ago, in 2013 to be more specific, Windells had quite the setup with some pretty descent sized booters in the lane. Making jumps of that caliber this past summer was not an option with the lack of snow. Windells may have to change some of their marketing tactics if they still want skiers from across the country to visit their awesome camp.