Operators hoping weather changes soon to save their season
01/06/2001
Skip Card; The News Tribune
The thinnest mountain snowpack in years has left Washington's winter resorts with hillsides that sometimes feature more rocks, dirt and grass than skiers and snowboarders.
Weather forecasters say a recent shift in the jet stream soon could bring needed moisture and lower-elevation snow. But if conditions don't change, bare hillsides that are leaving long scratches in skis soon could put deep dents in ski operators' profits.
"I can't recall a year where we've had this little snow for a long time," said Kathleen Goyette, spokeswoman for White Pass Ski Area. The Yakima-area resort reported 35 inches of snow at its base Friday, enough to keep just 65 percent of its ski runs open.
The snow is even thinner at Crystal Mountain, northeast of Mount Rainier. Crystal had 29 inches of wet snow Friday at its 4,450-foot base and just 35 inches at its 6,870-foot summit.
Portions of the mountain typically have 80 or 90 inches of snow at this time of year, said Crystal spokesman David Wheeler. Most of Crystal's ungroomed backcountry areas remain closed, he said, and the High Campbell chairlift leading to the steepest slopes has yet to open this season.
Posted notices at Crystal warn skiers and snowboarders to stay on machine-groomed runs, avoid exposed rocks and anticipate at least some equipment damage.
"We're trying to be very honest at the ticket windows and letting people know about the conditions," Wheeler said.
Weather forecasters blame much of the thin snowpack on a series of inverted weather systems that flipped standard temperature patterns and trapped layers of warm air at high elevations. Among the effects:
* The Summit at Snoqualmie, at the crest of Interstate 90, reported 32 inches of snow Friday at its 2,620-foot base. That total is 3 inches more than the base at Crystal, which sits 1,830 feet higher and typically has a heavier snowpack.
* The Stevens Pass ski area reported 43 inches of snow Friday at its 4,061-foot base near the crest of U.S. 2 but just 32 inches at the resort's 5,845-foot summit.
* On New Year's Day, visitors to Mount Rainier National Park's snowplay area at Paradise enjoyed temperatures in the upper 40s but just 53 inches of snow on the ground, said ranger Steve Winslow. Rainier's snowpack is about half its normal levels, Winslow said.
* Mount Baker ski area, which two years ago set a world record for snowfall, reported just 46 inches of snow Friday at 4,300-foot Heather Meadows.
When no ski area in the state has more than 50 inches of base snow by January, "that's a pretty lean year," said White Pass' Goyette.
The thin snowpack for a time prompted the Federal Way branch of outdoor retail giant REI to halt ski rentals, since the equipment was likely to come back severely damaged. Most ski areas and stores still won't rent their expensive, high-performance "demo" skis.
Shops that repair and tune skis are seeing deep scratches in skis and snowboards used by people who ventured into backcountry areas or who didn't keep watch for rocks and other obstacles.
"If you try to go out where they aren't packing, you're really asking for some damage to your equipment," said Dick Vanderflute, owner of Parkland Sports.
Some of the ski damage has been "unbelievable," Vanderflute said.
Foot-long scrapes nearly a quarter-inch deep aren't uncommon, he said, and one customer brought in a $500 pair of new Solomon skis with the metal edges so severely ripped from the core that the skis could not be repaired.
Despite the thin snowpack, skiers still are heading to the slopes.
"It's not an awesome snow year, but we still see people skiing," said John Sheppard, operations manager for REI's flagship Seattle store.
Most resort operators say they drew an average number of visitors during the Christmas and New Year's holiday season.
Crystal drew between 3,000 and 4,000 visitors a day during the holiday breaks, Wheeler said. At Mission Ridge near Wenatchee, operators counted 19,631 visitors between Dec. 9 and Dec. 31, almost exactly what the ski area set for its attendance target, said marketing director Charlie Naismith.
Mission Ridge on Friday reported 24 inches of snow at its midway point 5,500 feet up the mountain, where it was 35 degrees and raining lightly. Operators hope the biggest snowfall is yet to come, Naismith said.
"We typically don't really get nailed until the beginning of January," he said.
Mountain weather forecasts offer hope for optimism.
Although freezing levels might creep as high as 8,000 feet this weekend, lower temperatures and more moisture are expected early next week.
Cliff Mass, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, said the strong winds of the jet stream have moved south, toward Oregon and California. The shift puts Washington closer to the La Nina weather pattern of the past two winters, when snowfall was above average.
"If the normal connections between La Nina and snowpack hold, that would imply that we should do pretty well from now on," Mass said. "There's no reason to expect this is going to be a drier period coming up."
More moisture would be welcome for a region that saw an unusually dry autumn. Roughly 6.5 inches less rain than normal fell at Sea-Tac Airport from Oct. 1 to the end of December, Mass said, and total rainfall was down about 8 inches in 2000.
"We virtually lost a whole month of precipitation," he said.
The jet stream shift is promising, but any long-range forecast in the Northwest could prove wrong, Mass warned.
"We have a hard enough time forecasting reliably two or three days ahead of time," he said.
Vanderflute urges people to be patient. Skiers eager to hit the slopes typically crowd thinly covered hillsides in early winter, the longtime ski shop owner said, but interest later wanes when conditions are sometimes ideal.
"In April, when we've got 10 feet of snow on the ground, you can't give a lift ticket away practically," he said.
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* Staff writer Skip Card covers outdoor recreation. Reach him at 253-597-8655 or skip.card@mail.tribnet.com.
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