A Ski Resort Manager Watches the Powder Disappear

Wade Powder sits in his office at the base lodge of a mid-sized Utah ski resort, watching the snowmaking guns fire white plumes across brown patches visible from his window. It's mid-February—weeks past when those guns should have been shut down for the season. His resort's snowpack sits at 52% of normal, matching the state's worst levels since record-keeping began in 1980.¹ Outside, a crew is installing additional snowmaking equipment on runs that should already be buried under three feet of natural snow.

Powder—yes, that's actually his surname, a cosmic joke he's learned to lean into—has spent twenty years in the ski industry, working his way from lift operations to general manager. This winter, he's navigating decisions no previous GM at his resort has faced: whether to lay off seasonal workers in what should be peak season, whether each additional day of snowmaking is financially defensible, and whether the traditional ski business model has any future in Utah.

The resort he manages isn't one of the giants like Deer Valley or Park City Mountain, which have poured millions into snowmaking infrastructure.² It's not tiny like Nordic Valley, which shut down entirely last Friday due to high temperatures and lack of snow.³ It's somewhere in between—exactly the kind of operation most vulnerable when the math stops working.

You've been running snowmaking operations into mid-February, which your team tells me is unprecedented here. Walk me through the calculation you're making every day those guns are running.

Wade: Every morning I wake up and check three things: the snowpack reports, the ten-day forecast, and our operating budget. Then I do math that makes less sense each day.

We're spending about $8,000 per day on snowmaking right now. Water, electricity, labor, equipment wear. That's for maybe six or seven runs we're trying to keep covered. In a normal year, we shut down snowmaking by late January, early February at the absolute latest. Natural snow takes over.

This year? [He gestures out the window] We're making snow on Valentine's Day and watching it rain at 8,000 feet.

So the calculation is: does one more day of artificial snow generate enough additional visits to cover that $8,000? And the honest answer is... probably not. But if we don't make snow, we have nothing. We've got people who bought season passes expecting to ski through April. We've got spring break bookings. We've got a town below us where half the businesses depend on skiers coming through.

So why keep doing it if the math doesn't work?

Wade: Because the alternative math is worse.

Look, if we shut down snowmaking now, we'd save maybe $200,000 between now and when we'd normally stop anyway. But we'd also signal to every pass holder, every potential spring visitor, every local business owner that we're done. That we've given up. The reputational cost of that? The long-term impact on season pass sales next year? That's not $200,000. That's millions.

Plus—and this keeps me up at night—once you start making these retreat decisions, where do you stop? This year we run snowmaking two weeks longer than normal. Next year, do we not even try to open certain terrain? The year after that, do we tell staff we're only operating weekends?

You start sliding down that slope and... [He pauses] Sorry, bad metaphor. But you see what I mean.

You mentioned staff. What are those conversations like?

Wade: Brutal.

We've already done early layoffs for about thirty seasonal workers. Ski school instructors, rental shop staff, food service. These are people who moved here for the season, signed leases, some of them turned down other opportunities. And I'm telling them in February that we don't have enough business to keep them through March.

Here's what kills me. These folks aren't naive. They know what's happening. One of our longtime ski instructors—she's been here fifteen seasons—she came into my office last week and said, "Just tell me straight: should I be looking for a different career?"

And what am I supposed to say?

I gave her some line about how every industry has rough years, how we're investing in snowmaking technology, how climate patterns are cyclical. But she looked at me like she knew I was lying to both of us.

Are you lying to both of you?

Wade: [Long pause] I don't know. That's the honest answer.

The data says ski seasons in the U.S. have already shortened by 5-7 days on average, and that could double or triple by 2050.⁴ The data says we've lost 11-17 inches of snowfall nationally over the last thirty years.⁵ The data says Utah's snowpack is the lowest since 1980 and most of our water basins are at 50% of median or below.⁶

But I also know we've had bad years before. 2018 was terrible—even worse than this on New Year's Day. And then we had decent seasons after that.

So is this the new normal, or is this an outlier? By the time you know for sure, you've already made ten years of business decisions based on the wrong assumption.

You're planning a major expansion for next summer—new lifts, more snowmaking capacity. How do you justify that investment when you're not sure the business model works?

Wade: [Laughs darkly] You want the corporate answer or the 2 AM answer?

Corporate answer: We're investing in resilience. Modern snowmaking technology is incredibly efficient. We're installing systems that can make snow at higher temperatures, that use less water and energy per acre-foot. We're diversifying into summer recreation—mountain biking, ziplines, alpine coasters. We're not betting everything on winter anymore.

2 AM answer: I have no fucking idea if this is smart.

We're borrowing $12 million to install infrastructure that might be obsolete in fifteen years. But if we don't invest, we're definitely obsolete in five. So it's a gamble either way, except one gamble lets me tell my staff and my community that we're fighting, that we're not just rolling over.

The summer diversification thing. Everyone talks about it like it's this obvious solution. But summer revenue is maybe 15-20% of winter revenue, even at resorts that have been building summer operations for years. You can't replace a $50 million winter season with mountain bike rentals and a ropes course. You just can't.

What about the town? You mentioned half the businesses depend on ski traffic.

Wade: That's not hyperbole. We did an economic impact study three years ago. The resort and ski-related tourism generate about 60% of the town's economic activity. When we have a bad snow year, it doesn't just hurt us. It cascades through everything.

The coffee shop that usually has a line out the door? Half empty. The gear shop that orders inventory in October based on projected visits? They're sitting on unsold merchandise. The property management companies that rent condos to ski tourists? They're fielding cancellations and refund requests.

I was at a town council meeting last month, and the owner of a breakfast place down the mountain stood up and said, "I've had to cut my staff's hours by 30%. These are single parents, people with rent to pay. What are you going to do about it?"

And everyone looked at me. Like I can make it snow.

The Telluride situation showed what happens when a resort shuts down even temporarily. Their town manager said more than 40% of February lodging and 65% of March lodging was still unbooked, businesses were cutting hours and pausing benefits.⁷ That was a labor strike, not weather, but the economic cascade is the same.

Do you talk to your kids about whether they should consider careers in the ski industry?

Wade: [Very long pause]

My daughter is fourteen. She's a good skier, works as a volunteer in the ski school on weekends. Last year she told me she wanted to do what I do. Run a mountain.

I haven't told her not to. But I also haven't encouraged it. How do you tell your kid, "The thing I've dedicated my life to might not exist in a form you'd recognize by the time you're my age"?

My son is eleven, and he asked me last week why we're making snow when it's supposed to snow naturally. And I tried to explain it. The warm temperatures, the rain instead of snow, the way the climate is changing. And he said, "So when I'm grown up, will there still be skiing?"

I said yes. But I don't know if I believe it. Not here, anyway. Maybe at the highest-elevation resorts. Maybe in places that can afford to be entirely artificial. But places like ours? Mid-sized, mid-elevation, dependent on natural snow to make the artificial snow work?

I genuinely don't know.

What's your timeline for making a decision about whether this is sustainable?

Wade: There isn't one. That's what makes this so hard.

It's not like one day you wake up and definitively know "this business is dead." It's a slow erosion. Each year you make slightly more compromises, slightly more adjustments, and you tell yourself it's temporary.

We're not closing. Not this year, not next year. But in five years? Ten? I think we'll look fundamentally different. Maybe we're a three-month operation instead of five-month. Maybe we're weekends-only in March. Maybe we've pivoted so hard into summer that winter is just a legacy business we maintain for tradition.

“

When you invest millions in snowmaking, are you showing resilience or denial? When you tell your staff this is just a rough patch, are you being a leader or a liar?

I don't have answers to those questions yet.

What would you need to see to feel confident about the next twenty years?

Wade: Three consecutive seasons of above-average snowpack. Consistent cold temperatures in November and December. Spring snow that lasts into April instead of rain in March.

Basically, I'd need the last twenty years to reverse.

Or I'd need the business model to completely transform. I'd need summer revenue to triple. I'd need to stop thinking of ourselves as a ski resort and start thinking of ourselves as a mountain recreation company that happens to offer skiing in winter, when conditions allow.

Which sounds great in a board meeting. But that second path requires capital we don't have and time we might not have and a cultural shift that's really hard when your entire identity is built around powder days and chairlift rides.

[He looks out the window at the snowmaking guns, still running]

You know what's funny? My last name. My whole life, people have made jokes. "Wade Powder, you must be destined for the ski industry!" And I always laughed along.

But now it feels like a cosmic joke. Like I'm Wade Powder watching the powder disappear.

Are you still glad you took this job?

Wade: Ask me in ten years.

If we're still operating, if we've figured out how to adapt, if the town below us is still thriving—then yes. If we're shuttered and I'm explaining to my staff why their careers ended and my kids are asking why I didn't see it coming... then no.

But right now, in this moment? I'm glad I'm here. Because someone has to make these decisions. Someone has to run the numbers and have the hard conversations and keep the guns running even when the math doesn't quite work. Someone has to try.

Even if trying just means delaying the inevitable.