To keep skiing the East through droughts and warming winters, we may have to ‘rethink’ ski season

People make their way up Pats Peak in Henniker while night skiing on Feb. 1 2024. (Photo by Ethan DeWitt/New Hampshire Bulletin)

Winter ski season is on the horizon, but New Hampshire is still deep in drought, putting some snowmakers at the state’s mountain resorts on edge. 

With evolving technology and strategic snowmaking, the snowmakers said they expect to keep skiers on the trails this winter despite current water shortages. But like warming winters, recurring late-summer droughts are part of a larger climate change-driven pattern that has complicated the task of running a ski resort in the Northeast. While technology upgrades can help, experts said they also recognize that the industry is changing in ways that can’t be circumvented.

“Now we’re being limited not only by temperature, but potentially by water as well,” said Caitlin Hicks Pries, a Dartmouth researcher and associate professor of biology whose work studying snowpack has intersected with her love of skiing. However, she said, advances in technology — and, potentially, a mindset shift — can help for now.

As of Oct. 7, more than half of New Hampshire was in “extreme drought,” according to an Oct. 9 report from the U.S. Drought Monitor. This reflects a recurring pattern of dry periods in late summer that is driven by climate change, according to New Hampshire State Climatologist Mary Stampone.

Ski mountains across the state get their snowmaking water from different sources, some of which are more vulnerable than others to drought-driven water shortages, said Hicks Pries. A spring-fed lake, for example, will be less immediately affected by drought than a stream fed by mountainside runoff.

Regardless, most everyone in the industry senses the urgency of water conservation, said David Ulbrich, mountain operations director at Gunstock Mountain Resort in Gilford, who has also worked at ski resorts in Vermont, Maine, and New York. 

“We’ve definitely, as an industry, had to be smarter with how we’re using our water, because, yeah, we have run into these problems at almost every resort I’ve been at,” he said.

On Oct. 8, Ulbrich had just returned from checking on the runoff-fed stream that Gunstock will dam in late October to create a reservoir for snowmaking. After some morning rain, Ulbrich said he was relieved to find the stream running again after it had gone dry in late summer.

“You can’t take (water) for granted anymore,” he said.

To cope with this reality, coupled with increased temperature ups and downs midwinter that can melt snow off trails, Ulbrich and his crew have adapted their approach to snowmaking, spreading the effort out across the winter season. Traditionally, a snowmaking crew would make all their snow — maybe five feet on a typical trail — in one go at the outset of the season, he said. But this strategy risks losing all that snow, and labor, to a thaw or warm rain midwinter. So, when water is limited and thaws increasingly common, the team has adapted to making less snow at the beginning of the season, then returning to their trails later in the year to add more.

“It does make sense not to put all your snow eggs in one basket,” said Hicks Pries of this approach. But the method also requires more labor and time.

Snowmaking “is one of the most expensive things we have to do, as far as money and power go,” said Erik Barnes, general manager at Ragged Mountain Resort in Danbury. At Ragged, the snowmaking crew generally sticks to making all their snow in one go. They are aided by the fact that Ragged pulls its snowmaking water from a bog, which is generally a reliable source even in times of drought, Barnes said; this year, the driest since at least 1895, its water level is down only a fifth of an inch from its average, he said. 

Ragged is evolving in other ways, including by adopting high-efficiency snowmaking guns. These devices use compressed air to send water misting into the air, where it can freeze and be deposited on the slope as snow. More efficient snowmaking guns can accomplish that with less energy, less air, and less water, said Kris Blomback, general manager at Pats Peak, where the efficient guns are also in use. And making trails as smooth as possible is another way to lessen the amount of snow required for good skiing, Blomback said.

“The technology with the industry has really come a long way in the last two decades, and it’s good to see the commitment here,” Ulbrich said.

Yet, while efficient snow guns and other snow-maximizing measures are becoming an essential part of mountain adaptations, snowmakers are still limited by temperature. When it’s too warm, snowmaking is simply thwarted.

“It’s one of those things that, like, at a certain point, there’s nothing you can do,” Ulbrich said. “You know, at 32 degrees (Fahrenheit), there’s not much technology that’s going to help you make snow if things aren’t freezing.”

Some resorts engage in “snow farming,” using insulation to preserve heaps of snow through above-freezing temperatures so it can later be put to use for winter sports, said Hicks Pries. The technique is practiced at some locations in New England, but is more common in Europe, she said. 

As water scarcity and winter heat waves continue to challenge early-season snowmaking and snow retention, Hicks Pries said her research had led her to a new idea: What if the answer to preserving ski culture in the Northeast is a shift in timing?

“We are having less snow early in the season, less snowmaking weather early in the season,” she said. Meanwhile, though it’s more sporadic, precipitation is on the rise overall — and some preliminary climate data suggest that early spring months are becoming snowier, Hicks Pries said. 

“So, do we have to sort of rethink when the ski season is, and what’s realistic with our new climate?” she asked.

Adjusting to this shift in timing could involve accepting that some traditional ski weeks — like those around the winter holidays — have less reliable snow and may no longer be in the optimal skiing season. But maybe, Hicks Pries said, skiers could make up for that later in the year.

Adapted snowmaking schedules, like what Ulbrich described at Gunstock, seem to reflect the adaptations already taking place in the industry. Meanwhile, resort operators said they were optimistic ahead of this winter’s season that autumn rains would replenish their reservoirs.

“We’re still 45 plus days away from heavy-duty snowmaking so we still have some time for the storm clouds to reappear and right the ship,” Blomback said.