Donner Ski Ranch, one of Lake Tahoe’s homey alternatives to the mega pass resorts, closed around two months earlier than last winter on Saturday, March 21.
The mountain kept it brief, writing in a social media announcement, “If we receive significant snowfall we will reopen for the love of skiing and riding. Praying for snow since 1937.”
It’s not the only Tahoe ski resort to quit as record-breaking high temperatures hit California and other states out West, baking mountain snowpacks. Homewood abruptly wrapped up its season on March 17. Sierra-at-Tahoe closed on March 22. Other Californian mountains, like Mt. Shasta Ski Park and Dodge Ridge, have shuttered for the season, too.
“Our team’s been doing an amazing job keeping everything alive,” said Bryan Hickman, Sierra-at-Tahoe’s director of operations, citing the hard work of the groomers and ski patrol teams in a recent social media update. “But sometimes Mother Nature just wins.”
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According to the National Weather Service, cities from San Francisco to Denver saw record highs last week.
For those in the snow business, that isn’t good news, particularly after a season that’s seen less snowfall than usual across many western states. The dry season and hot temperatures also raise concerns outside of skiing, like those around water supplies and wildfire risk this summer.
Researchers say a warming Earth played a role. World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists that studies the link between extreme weather and climate change, wrote in a news release that the hot March temperatures would’ve been “virtually impossible without human-induced climate change.”
Will Donner Ski Ranch’s wish for more snow arrive before summer? The upcoming week looks warm and dry, but the one after that could see a short-lived burst of colder weather, rain, and snow, according to OpenSnow. It’s not clear if that would be enough for a reopening, though, as the ski area’s slopes look bare, per its webcams.
In the meantime, other Lake Tahoe resorts, like Palisades Tahoe and Kirkwood, are still humming along.
Although the hot temperatures seem to have taken their toll: Palisades Tahoe announced last week that Granite Chief, an upper mountain lift, had closed for the season. The snow from the slopes there is being farmed to help preserve coverage and access around the Shirley Lake Express.
At Kirkwood, the April pond skim event, the slush cup, was cancelled. The resort said it did so in a social media post to “preserve our snowpack and deliver the best possible skiing and riding conditions through closing day.”
