For skiers out West, the 2025-26 season involved more frustration than powder days. Thanks to the heat, many ski areas struggled with a lack of snow all winter long.
While there were plenty of fun days to be had up there, for the most part, this season will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.
The impacts go beyond the marginal snow conditions. When the powder faucets shut off, fewer visitors show up, impacting the finances of ski areas and the employees who work at them. And when ski areas close before they usually do, some employees might be looking for work earlier than expected.
With that in mind, the non-profit ski area Bridger Bowl, Montana, recently offered its seasonal workers their standard end-of-year bonus, along with an additional bonus to compensate for the shortened season, KBZK, a local news outlet, reported.
“We brought it to the board, and I’m happy to say the board was more than supportive—they actually asked if we would do more,” general manager Hiram Towle told KBZK.
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While Towle didn’t share specific bonus amounts, he said the move “was met with quite a bit of rejoicing. We had a lot of employees reach out to say thank you, and I know it did make an impact—that’s exactly what we wanted to do.”
Bridger Bowl, by the season’s end, had received only 138 inches of snow, well below its average of around 300 inches. The ski area called it quits ahead of schedule on March 22. Towle broke the news in a social media post, his pants rolled up as he stood barefoot in a pool of melted snow at Bridger Bowl’s base area.
“We tried very hard to envision a way that we could stay open both for the public and for the employees, but it was just too unclear with 70-degree days and a really thin snowpack,” Towle told KBZK.
The ski area wasn’t alone in shutting down early. From California to Colorado, mountains were forced to trim days or weeks off their season plans.
Still, a few resorts remain open in North America. Palisades Tahoe and Mammoth Mountain, California, have more ski days on their calendar, as does Timberline Lodge, Oregon. And in Wyoming, the summer ski area Beartooth Basin is working to get open later this month.
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