Skiers, Take Heart! There Is Snow if You Know Where to Look

In Vermont, where unseasonably warm temperatures challenged snow-making in mid-December, Mad River Glen was forced to close for four days earlier this month. In the Lake Tahoe Basin, where the snowpack was 9 percent of normal on Jan. 1, Squaw Valley had just 4 of roughly 170 trails open. And resorts in Park City, Utah, have run snowmakers full blast for the last several weeks to make up for the dearth.

“It’s been a crazy year because it’s been so dry for so many regions of the United States,” said Patrick Crawford, content director for Onthesnow.com, which provides reports on ski resorts around the world. “They’re all struggling.”

Unseasonably warm temperatures and unusual jet stream patterns, which are sending storms to the far north and south instead of across the Great Basin, the Rocky Mountains, the mid-Atlantic states and New England, are to blame. Just a handful of places have benefited from the strange weather patterns, including New Mexico and parts of the upper Northwest, which have received unprecedented snowfall.

Resorts point out that weather patterns could change quickly. Already, parts of New England seem to be turning a corner, thanks to a recent cold spell, which allowed ski resorts to power up their snow guns. For now, here is where you can find the best snow.

New England

Teased by a record-breaking late-October snowstorm, which buried some northern New England towns in snow and allowed resorts like Killington in Vermont to open early, ski areas faced mild temperatures in mid-December that made snow-making difficult. But a few cold days after the first of the year helped resorts make up for lost time.

For the best conditions, look for resorts with aggressive snow-making. “We have been blasting our guns for a total of 52 days since opening back in October,” said Darcy Morse, a spokeswoman at Sunday River in Newry, Me., which had 15 out of 16 lifts operating last weekend and 60 of 132 trails open, compared with 89 open trails the same weekend a year ago.

Some resorts are better equipped than others. Mad River Glen in Fayston, Vt., has just three snow machines. Mount Snow in West Dover, Vt., has 253 high-efficiency fan guns — the most, it says, in North America. Half of Mount Snow’s 20 lifts were open midweek in early January, as were 29 of 80 trails.

Over all, about half of Vermont’s 1,200 trails were open during the first week of January, down less than 10 percent compared with a year earlier.

“With 100-plus days left in the season, there’s plenty of winter to be enjoyed, and business to be recovered, yet,” Jen Butson, a spokeswoman for Ski Vermont, wrote in an e-mail.

New Hampshire had 462 of 795 trails open on Jan. 5, thanks to “some nice long stretches of round-the-clock snow-making weather recently,” said Karl Stone, marketing director for Ski New Hampshire. “This means our ski areas are making all the snow they can.”

Colorado

The snowpack for all of Colorado was 68 percent of normal in early January, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, part of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Vail Resorts, which owns and operates four large ski areas in Colorado as well as Northstar California in North Lake Tahoe and Heavenly on the California-Nevada border, reported that visits to its six resorts were down about 15 percent through Jan. 2 compared with the same period a year ago. And for the first time in 30 years, a lack of snow prevented Vail Ski Resort from opening its back bowls, as of Jan. 6.

For the best conditions, head south to resorts like Silverton, Wolf Creek and Durango, which have benefited from the odd weather pattern and have plenty of snow, said Mr. Crawford of Onthesnow.com. Or stay east of the Continental Divide, where some Colorado resorts have benefited from low-pressure systems that spin counterclockwise and have kicked snow into Denver and to nearby resorts like Echo Mountain and Eldora Mountain Resort.

Families simply looking for well-groomed trails will find plenty at major resorts like Aspen and Vail, which have invested heavily in snow-making and continue to lure travelers with loads of wintry activities, like snow tubing and ice skating, as well as high-end shops.

“Even in what has been a very, very difficult situation in terms of national snowfall, our total revenue is actually up,” said Robert A. Katz, chief executive for Vail Resorts, which reported that season-to-date lift-ticket revenue increased 0.6 percent and ski school revenue was up 0.9 percent compared with the prior season, when record snowfall was reported across its resorts.

Montana

Most of Montana also has little snow. But a few resorts have been lucky. With several large snowstorms and 3,381 acres open so far this season, Big Sky Resort in southwestern Montana claims it has the best ski conditions and the most open acres in the Rocky Mountains. In an effort to capitalize on Colorado’s woes, Big Sky has said Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass holders can ski its slopes free throughout January when they book lodging with Big Sky Central Reservations and ask for the Epic Package.

Red Lodge Mountain Resort opened 100 percent of its terrain, including 7 lifts and 71 runs, on Dec. 10 and has received about 140 inches so far. Last season, it wasn’t able to open all lifts and runs until February. And last week, Whitefish Mountain Resort in northwest Montana had 95 percent of its terrain open with a base depth of 13 to 45 inches, according to Onthesnow.com

New Mexico

The beginning of the 2011-12 season has been good here. All of the state’s ski resorts — from Ski Apache in the south to Red River in the north — have some of the best conditions in the country. Snowfall ranges from 40 inches in southern New Mexico to 105 inches in the north. Taos Ski Valley, about a two-hour drive from Santa Fe, has received 103 inches of snow through the first week of January. Red River Ski Area had 99 inches for the same period, roughly the same amount it received all last winter.

British Columbia

Canada’s westernmost province has had stellar snowfall in the last couple of weeks, and recent forecasts project more. Whistler Blackcomb had its third snowiest November on record and received new snow every day for the last nine days of December, creating a base of more than 6.6 feet and allowing it to open all 37 lifts, 8,171 acres and 200 runs.

Red Mountain Resort in Rossland reported getting new snow most days since Dec. 24, for a total of 20 inches, and is fully open with 100 percent natural snow. To get the word out about its snow, the resort is offering 30 days of free lift passes to visitors from the United States who book through Red Mountain Resort lodging using the booking code RedsGotSnow.

Europe

European ski resorts were wringing their hands at the start of the season, but that all changed last month thanks to several major storms. Club Med’s ski resorts in the French Alps, including Peisey-Vallandry, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, La Plagne 2100, Valmorel and Tignes Val Claret, have received a combined 20 feet of natural snow this season. Lake Geneva Region resorts in southern Switzerland report impressive snowfall totals, from nearly four feet at Châteaux-d’Oex to more than eight feet at Les Diablerets, with the forecast calling for more.

“It’s been snowing like they haven’t seen in a long, long time, very rapidly and over a lot of the Alps,” said Mr. Crawford of Onthesnow.com. “Austria, Switzerland and France is where to be.”