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Idaho's smallest ski resort - Rotarun in Hailey - more than tripled its annual skier visits from around 3,000 to nearly 12,000 after it installed snowmaking. Now, hundreds of disadvantaged kids learn to ski and race there in free programs that provide transportation and equipment. Race teams rent out the hill for training. And on Friday nights, families tailgate and gather around campfires at the base between runs.
This year, said Rotarun President Wally Limburg, "Without snowmaking, it wouldn't have opened, period. Because there just wasn't enough natural snow to get the coverage."
If it were reliant only on natural snow, Bogus Basin ski resort north of Boise wouldn't have opened until Jan. 6 this year, amid a warm, dry start to this year's winter. Instead, after a major investment in snowmaking and high-tech grooming over the past six years, the nonprofit resort opened to skiers on Thanksgiving and had a successful holiday season. Many major ski resorts in the U.S. and Canada were challenged with poor early-season snow coverage.
With the impacts of climate change challenging the ski and snowsports industry, resorts that can make their own snow are finding snowmaking to be key to saving ski seasons. Those without it are struggling. In Idaho, currently 12 of its 19 resorts have at least some snowmaking; expansions are in the works.
"It's going to be a necessity for us," said Bogus Basin General Manager Brad Wilson. "This year was a really good example."
Many major destination ski resorts in the U.S. installed snowmaking after the record dry winter of 1976-'77 - 87% of resorts belonging to the National Ski Areas Association have at least some snowmaking now. But the Pacific Northwest region has lagged behind "largely because they haven't needed it," Wilson said. "But I think we all know that those times are unfortunately changing." When Wilson visited major ski areas in the French Alps as part of an industry tour in January, he found no snow at all below about 6,000 feet of elevation. "The lower-elevation ski areas in Europe are really struggling; many have closed," Wilson said. "Many of the bigger ski areas are not opening their lower mountains."
A 2023 study commissioned by the National Ski Areas Association found, "Snowmaking increases...