At a small ski repair shop on the banks of Lake Tahoe in northern California, staff were turning away customers anxious to patch up their blades for the winter season.
“I could take your money and work on them,” said an employee at Tahoe Dave’s, turning a pair of dented skis over at the end of last year. “But what’s the point because you’re just going to hit a bunch of rocks tomorrow. I’d bring them back when there’s snow.”
Across the US and Europe, climate change is forcing the ski industry to adapt. As global temperatures hit new records, lower snowfall and melting snowpack are forcing the multibillion-dollar industry to rethink how they can keep consumers paying for expensive lift tickets, equipment and hospitality.
While a recent flurry of snowfall has allowed many of Tahoe’s trails to reopen, closures are becoming more frequent during the peak of the western US season — which runs from late November to early April. Many open trails are strewn with small rocks and ice, making them navigable for only the most skilled skiers.
In the US, the leading operators are expanding into ever-higher terrain and across different regions and ranges — and diversifying away from skiing. Vail Resorts and Alterra, the two US ski companies with the biggest number of resorts, now own large portfolios of hotels and are advertising their mountain playgrounds as places where people can enjoy outdoor activities all year round.
“These resorts aren’t just these little towns that nobody goes to in the off-season — mountain biking is huge now,” said Darcie Renn, Alterra’s vice-president of sustainability. “We’re doing more to extend the season — people can go hiking, climb ropes, do family adventure camps.”
Alterra is still “very much in the ski business, but it is becoming the mountain resort business”, she added.
Unlike in the US, where big companies run entire resorts, in Europe cable car operators typically oversee the lifts and ski slopes, while restaurants and accommodation are often owned by separate businesses.
But across the Alps and Italy’s Apennines, businesses also facing lower snowfall are taking the same approach by adding summer activities such as hiking and mountain biking, as well as building children’s play areas that make use of the mountainous landscapes.
Lift operators at leading Italian resorts such as Monte Cimone have spent big on snow-making facilities, churning out the “gun powder” that can save a day of skiing. About 90 per cent of Italy’s slopes rely on artificial snow, compared with 54 per cent in Switzerland and 40 per cent in France, according to the Cableways Association of Switzerland.
Despite these efforts, Apennine resorts are still feeling the pressure. “They are not having a wonderful season, but it is not as bad as it was last year,” Valeria Ghezzi, president at Anef, the association of Italian ski lift operators.
US resorts, even in high-altitude ski areas, are also boosting their snow-making capacity.
Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, close to the annual retreat for monetary policymakers in Teton County, Wyoming, has invested “heavily” in snow-making over the past decade. The resort can now supply snow to around a third of its trails.
Yet JHMR was forced to call off its annual extreme ski and snowboarding competition — usually held in a steep, narrow chute at the top of the mountain called Corbet’s Couloir — last month. The trail did not have the depth of snow needed to run the event, staff said.
“It’s been a tough year for the majority of the ski industry,” said Andrew Way, JHMR spokesperson.
Despite the weather challenges, a record 65.4mn visits to US slopes by skiers or snowboarders were recorded for 2022-23, according to the National Ski Areas Association, up 6.6 per cent from the previous season.
Vail and Alterra both offer an upfront season pass that allows access to all the companies’ ski runs for discount rates, providing the businesses with reliable revenue and a steady stream of visitors even when low snowfall prevents skiing on some routes.
With 2.4mn guests “pre-committed” to its 41 resorts across the US, Europe and Australia this season, a Vail spokesperson said its pre-season pass was a bid to “change the dynamic” of being “ruled by the weather”.
Alterra’s Renn added: “We can lean in on this pre-season revenue. It gives us a little bit more good feeling that someone will be at some of our resorts somewhere.”
Vail is expanding its portfolio in Europe. In November, the company bought the operator of the Crans-Montana resort in the Swiss Alps, following an acquisition of another Swiss resort in 2022.
But Europe is unlikely to provide the US companies with a safe haven from climate change. Average temperatures in Alpine regions have risen almost 2C from pre-industrial levels, the Research Center for Alpine Ecosystems estimated, well above the long-term global figure of at least 1.1C.
Some US ski companies admit that rising temperatures will eventually render even the most aggressive snow-making operations obsolete.
At Aspen Snowmass in Colorado, the resort’s executives lobby aggressively for pro-climate legislation. Two years ago, the company installed a sculpture of a cable car at the top of one of its lifts, and it leaves copies of its call to climate action in every hotel room, said Auden Schendler, senior vice-president of sustainability.
Calling for sweeping measures such as a carbon tax regime in the US, he said the ski industry had been fixated on their own emissions and “misunderstanding climate change as something that can be fixed by changing the lightbulbs”.
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