The Midwest’s Ski Season Ended Before It Even Began
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- čas přidán 22. 06. 2024
- Similar to much of the continent, the 2023-24 Midwest ski season started out well below average in terms of snowfall. But unlike the rest of North America, the ski season never really bounced back in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and other Midwest states.
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0:00 Intro
0:51 Early Fall and October
2:31 November: Pushed-Back Openings
4:12 December: Abnormally Warm Temperatures
5:50 January: Some Signs of Hope
7:30 February: The Season Falls Apart
9:44 March: Game Over
11:10 Final Thoughts
UPDATE: Mt. Bohemia is REOPENING this weekend! Ullr pulling thru for a late season surprise 🙏 instagram.com/p/C5EPnpEOcAP/
Maybe a lot of these mid-western ski areas should build bike parks as they may become increasingly dependent on summer operations to stay afloat if the mid-west is going to see less and less snow. They would have a longer bike park season than the Rockies, Northeast or Northwest. Right now most lift access bike parks in the US are in the rockies at existing destination resorts, primarily in Colorado (CO has 13 lift access bike parks)
Boyne and cannonsburg in MI have MTB, though cannonsburg doesn’t charge for it.
Mt Brighton Mi used make some summer lines not sure if they still do
And DISC GOLF.
I would love for hidden valley to have lift access mountain biking.
Never thought about it but I wanna see a trollhaugen bike park
As someone who has had a weather hobby for 20 years it was pretty shocking to see the lack of freezing temperatures in the midwest. I've seen winters with a major thaw or two and below average snow cover but never a winter where there was almost no snow cover and it was above freezing most of the time. The midwest lacks verticle and moisture but usually has cold snow making temperatures in abundance and widespread thin snow cover. I live in the Pacific Northwest and it was also pretty amazing to see Mt Baker where the world record snowfall was set in 1999 struggle to maintain a thin snowpack among heavy rain, Mt Baker gets occasional winter rainstorms but most of the precip is usually snow. The ski season did end alot better in the Northwest.
All the El Nino predictions that the weather channel said would happen came true this last winter. Warmer temps and lower precips in much of the northern states.
its not over yet. we just got a foot of snow here in southern california lol
As a ham radio operator, we're in the middle of a solar maximum. These are 22 year cycles start to finish. I wouldn't expect much snow for the next 1-3 years either.
20 yrs? You think that's alot?
Thanks for going to the Midwest. I remember asking for a review of Lutsen last year.
Agree much appreciated. But need to point out his pronunciation of Lutsen could use some work
@@Badgerbrew "LOOT-sen"
Road Lutsen in Feb. Was above freezing everyday but from open until 2pm conditions were shockingly good.
And props to Granite Peak. The opened 12/1 and are still going to be open for a couple of weeks. That's 4+ months. They're snowmaking is the best in the Midwest
Granite Peak's snowmaking and grooming crew did a fantastic job of maintaining the snow that they had. The operations crew did creative things like alternating closing the east and west runs in mid march to preserve the snowpack. Friday (March 22) 4-5 inches dropped at the hill. Conditions were excellent Saturday. Sunday is expending 3-6, so I guess in central Wisconsin were going to have a few days on winter in spring.
This was the second season in a row that had way above average temps. It was definitely spring conditions all year except for about a 10 day stretch in mid January. Hopefully next season is better
I remember during the 2014-15 season my home mountain China Peak, CA got a grand total of 27in. They average 300in per year. Even out west, it can happen. Let's hope next year delivers!
7:00 fyi it's pronounced "loo-tsen" not "luh-tsen" (don't worry I've made the same mistake before!) and yes we've had a terrible lack of snowfall this year. This upcoming system may bring more snow in one storm than we've had this entire season so far. BTW if you ever need any footage of Lutsen or some other upper Midwest resorts let me know
We’d love some! We can probably find a purpose for all the ones on the list we didn’t get 😅
I'm living in the PNW currently but I grew up in Illinois...Lutsen was the closest "real" skiing we could find, and it was great. Shout out to Coho Cafe, super good food!
Man, if you're the owner of an independent ski resort in the Midwest, the question of "how many seasons do we have left?" must be crossing your mind. An asset guaranteed to return revenue every year is valued very differently from an asset with a 99% chance of returning revenue each year. And if those percentages are only getting worse, that'd be a pretty strong incentive for an independent owner to sell sooner rather than later. You'd have to imagine we'll see significant consolidation across the Midwest in the coming years, and unfortunately probably some closures.
This is true and makes me so sad. I love our local, family-owned mountain in Ohio. It's SO much better than the Epic resorts here!
Global temperatures only rise 0.036 degrees Fahrenheit every year according to climate.gov. The reason there was little snow this year was because of El Niño
Nah it’s just a revolving door imo, there have always been places closing down and new ones opening. I doubt it’s easy to financially budget a ski slope due to years like this. Only the strong survive.
Crazy to end the ski season a whole month earlier than usual here in the U.P. March-April is usually the best time for Bohemia :(
I guess we need to keep this place quiet now
I’m in Southern California watching this and hoping that the Midwest gets a much better season. Looking forward to Peak Rankings going back and giving them a proper review in proper conditions
Happy to see Midwest finally
You could say this about the mid Atlantic East Coast as well even though Vermont had some good snow.
Anything south of Albany was pretty terrible.
We had plenty of precipitation it just was never cold enough to be snow, and when we did get snow it fell on wet unfrozen, warm ground and then it got too warm the next day for it to hold
Vermont has been extremely lucky towards the end of this season where cold fronts have consistently been right below the state line, allowing for some consistent small snowfall totals. Just came back from an 18 inch pow day at Mount Snow which is almost unheard of on the Ice Coast and it was probably the most fun I've ever had. PA/NJ/CT unfortunately have just seen nothing but rain.
I'm from near Chicago. We only really had one big snow this year, polar vortex hit and then we got 10 inches of very fine powder. I went out and did some xx skiing one day, that was the only day I could ski this season. A couple days later it had melted. Pretty much the new normal around here.
Temps only rise 0.036 degrees per year according to climate.gov
@@TheSloppyjoejr Air temp only really tells part of the story, tho. During a typical el nino event, the cold air around the polar caps is like a wall that keeps the midwest cold and funnels the warm air through the south and out to the Atlantic. The warming oceans of the Atlantic acted like a wall this year, funneling the air straight up and caused a bouncing of the polar air. It is why we got 5 days of warm, 5 days of cold through the entire winter.
Next year is looking like a very strong La Nina, tho. Sucks for the Caribbean, but next year winter is going to be strong.
My resort bought 15 new snow guns last summer, and they bought 5 more in the middle of December.
Granite Peak is the only Wisconsin resort still open.
Granite peak is pretty cool haven't been there in like 14 years tho.
Maybe spend your money on mountain biking?
It’s about time you come to Wisconsin, yay 🎉
i so hope next winter is amazing
I’m glad to see the Midwest get some attention, albeit for an unfortunate set of circumstances. This video was very comprehensive!
Looking forward to the reviews for each resort, thanks
This winter, we made snow all the way until the end. It thawed for a week in November and we only had two runs open. We basically had to make the base layer twice. Gnarly winter.
Im currently in vermont in a winter storm. Great powder today
Please go to Mt. Baldy in California 🙏
It is a small local resort with a very old-timey feel, mainly fueled by their main 2 lifts which are unchanged from 1954. It is only an hour away from LA on a normal day and has pretty good snow after they get a storm.
Def thought he said "Knob snob" at 5:15 haha. Had to look the resort up to find out what he was talking about.
Big fan of the channel! I'm a Cincinnati resident living veraciously through this channel each winter.
Perfect north in Indiana absolutely killed it given the warm temps - their snowmaking and grooming is absolutely top notch compared to some of the other southern Midwest ski areas that barely had any snow cover for 30 days (I’m looking at you Mad River Mountain)
I got 42 days at PNS this season!
Pretty much describes the issue for lower altitude resorts in the Alps as well. After a good snowfall end of November/start of December, it was just way too warm and raining away the snow all the season.
I skied a week in Lutsen (pronounced loot-sen), and the conditions were reasonable. It was all man-made snow, so no reliable tree skiing, but it had good groomers for the family. Did the same week last season and we got dumped on with fresh powder … it was pretty great, esp the views over Lake Superior. I’m hoping next season is a bit kinder on the Midwest.
Some good years, some bad. In SoCal, our season this year is all-time. I remember some years in the 90s where even Colorado was dry. We were jumping over dirt patches in February.
It should be said, Boston Mills/Brandywine (more specifically Brandywine) did a fantastic job this season, all things considered. It was nice seeing some shots of BMBW in this video, no matter how unimpressive it looks, lol. They aren't the best, but I'm glad we have them. Hopefully you were able to check out the national park while you were in town!
I typically have a season pass at BMBW. This year was perhaps the worst in memory. I was surprised the staff was able to keep the slopes open at Boston Mills until early March. Brandywine had already closed! When it was cold enough to make snow, rains would soon follow (instead of natural snow) due to the warm temperatures. In Northeastern Ohio, the ski season has progressively worsened over the past 20-25 years. Just miserable.
Two year ago they were open for like 27 days. This year they were open 75. The weather sucked, but snow conditions were decent when they were able to be.
@@gianmarcorinaldi8247 I didn't start skiing until January so I must have missed half of the days this year??
@@craigwb95 yeah, I started late too, because “BMBW sucks blah blah blah” but from what I ski’d’ it was much better than years passed. Someone on the FB group released the stats for days open and I think it was the third most open year in the last 6.
Wish you could’ve made it to Alpine Valley! I was there the last few days of the season (at the end of February 🤮) and the rail jam was fun but this year was so sad. We had 2 great weeks a real winter, and that was it. Of course we just got 8” today because Mother Nature just had to throw another roast in there
At least Perfect North - which you didn't even list - got to open for a couple months, and they are by far the most southern of all those areas.
The same story in Europe, Alps. Many low altitude areas had to close a month before plan, some even remained closed over all. But even the highest peaks were rather bare. Max. snow height at 10,000 feet elevation was below or at 100 inches. Which also indicates an oncoming bad glacier melting season.
Boyne Mtn made snow all this past week. Limited terrain open but snow quality was near the best all season this weekend.
Skied BoHo a month ago, even then it was at best 2/3’rds open and rocks everywhere. Year two of bad snow conditions here in Mich.
I spent January in the Philippines and took a week to chase pow in Nagano Japan. Same story. I rode my bike in February in Summer kit. Sigh. I've got some Feb and March skiing in -- Granite Peak, Brule, and Snow River.
Northern MI was still decent in late Feb. But quickly warmed up on March 1. January was very warm with no snow for weeks😢
I had a decent season in northern lower peninsula Michigan. I hit mt bohemia in Jan and it was fun. Nubs nob is always reliable and hit it today (Mar 23 2024) and they still have good snow but a thin base by nubs standards.
Same here on the ice coast…
I’m a two hour drive away from A-Basin. It’s small but fun. An extremely long season.
Some of these places seem like they'd be fun to go to in a good snow year. Especially if you like glade skiing through deciduous trees.
Mount Bo in a good year is one of the best places to ski in the country, the community itself is amazing
Pool co. in Indiana
We typically start opening pools between the first week of March till sometime in May. It just depends on the year. I remember one year we didn't get started till the end of March. It's always different.
A mountain review of Sugarloaf would be very interesting and I think that it's Brackett Basin area would make a very fun part.
Ironic that today it snowed 6 inches in Michigan. Also, Cannonsburg Ski Area had its shortest season EVER this year.
A foot of snow fell in Buffalo last week and we still have April winter to look forward to so no snow looks very nice right about now.
It was a nightmare.
I thought that not being able to afford going out west to ride was bad enough.
You never know what you've got till it's gone.
I work at Jiminy Peak MA. They closed on 3/23 at noon since they missed, yet again on the storm moving through. St Patty’s day weekend was a whole mountain pond skim it seemed…sad year for sure.
Big powder today 10 inches today, be a good finish! Legendary
I’m happy that Alpine Valley did such a great job this year despite the weather it’s the only place in the Chicagoland/MKE area that puts in a serious effort to stay open
im on the west and bogus basin got pretty good snow, ad we’ve gotten 200in this season. sucks other resorts couldn’t get this
It’s crazy! NC just closed! Going to WV for one more weekend. Not bad for us making it just about to April
I skied in Arizona 6 times this season, lots of snow at Sunrise Park.
Fast foward 2 days from the release of this video. MAJOR spring blizzard brings 24" of snow to Lutsen, Granite Peak and Snowriver extending the season
And Granite Peak is up today March 22, 2024 after several inches of snow.
Was a good year to tear my ACL and PCL lol. At least I didn’t have to feel bad about missing out on the season.
I live in Minnesota it was not good then we went out west so fun!
My favorite part is how you completely ignore both Grand Geneva and Wilmot in Wisconsin lol
Wilmot and Grand Geneva are closer to Villa Olivia than Cascade, in terms of skiing.
@@lauraweiss7875 they still exist though. I grew up riding at Wilmot and still do most of the season. People sleep on it, but it's a lot of fun and a great place to learn and hone skills.
The east was very similar heavy rainstorms but few snowstorms
We had several big storms in WV. Canaan/Timberline had one of their best seasons in awhile.
its funny because here i am in northern mn looking at upwards of 18 inches in the coming week... an odd winter, here, to say the least.
It never fails, when we get a mild winter and start to think spring will come early, spring will end up being more wintery than the winter.
😮 wow, we had a pretty descent season here in the southeast at Beech and Sugar Mountain. I think the higher elevation here definitely helped.
Altitude does lead to cooler conditions, but when I was up there in January, it was cold and snowy when conditions were mild and sunny in the flatlands. It looked like on weather radar that a small band of snow lingered in the area days after a cold front had left the region.
Yeah I skied twice at Cataloochee in mid-March. NC mountains were solid this year.
If you want any footage from Alpine Valley showing the conditions this season, let me know.
Mostly park and chairlift footage, though
The same thing happened over here in the Canadian Rockies.
At Giants Ridge, we were like, "WHAT bad winter???"
We've seen the ability to ski during the easter break slowly disappear over the last 20 years where I live in Sweden.
While it was a pretty awful season. Every spot I hit in the Upper MW did an amazing job keeping as much terrain as possible open. Add to that the only people who were out on the hills were the people who live to ride. Which lead to a very fun experience & vibe. Big shout out in particular to Welch Villages opps team. Keeping the south east facing back bowl open for months somehow.
It'd be cool if you added the ski resort/hill to the bottom of each footage.
I went to Alpine Valley a lot this winter and I would say that even though the daily lift ticket price of $65 sucked ass, the hill actually wasn't bad at all given how horrible the snow was this winter. I'd much rather ski out west, but I can't complain when I live 35 minutes from Alpine valley. It sucks to see, but I was happy to see that the hill had a good amount of people each time I went there. On top of that, they close at 10pm which means I can still get a few hours of skiing after work.
I would rather let a place go out of business than pay $65 in the Midwest, especially on a bunch of fake snow we had this year. F that
Next year please do a full review on Magic Mountain, Vermont a true hidden gem/local’s mountain. Please make sure to meet Mr Hatheway, the owner.
You need to do a tour of other Quebec resorts
We need better engineered snow machines. Polyphenol extracts, (a substance found naturally in strawberries and other foods,) can keep icecream from melting for hours at 105°f/40°c. If you could foam up some frozen snow with compressed air, water, and freeze stabilizer than more slopes should be able to stay open. You'd just need something cheap to run from a central set of tanks. Like a whole shop air compressor, central vac, or those pressure washer trucks with the big tanks and a 1000ft hoze that they send their cleaners in with. Public tap water is another good example of a central setup that pumps out, but you'd need to add air, polyphenol , and power for snow.
I’ve been skiing the same MI resort over Martin Luther King week every year for the past 22 years. It’s ironic that this year, perhaps the worst snow year ever, actually had the most epic MLK powder week I’ve ever had in Michigan (20” of fairly light fresh powder on a decent base over 3 days to start the week).
It’s too bad you guys visited during such a crappy season. I would have liked to hear your reports and comparisons when the resorts are skiing well.
Build paved hills for longboarding/freeboarding and get that stuff back into fashion
Amazing analysis. Sad times!
Man I live 30 min from mad river mountain and didn't even get a day in this year
Where in Minnesota did you go?
I didnt even look at the weather for my trip to the highlands mid january and it dumped 2 feet. Crazy just to think if it didnt snow we would have went and not known what it was like.
Natural snow for winter sports in the midwest US and southern Canada has become almost a thing of the past. It will return at sometime albeit those of us who remember the 70s with big snow storms, -25c temperatures and several dumps of snow over 20 inches at a time throughout the winter, will likely not see those days anytime soon. Snowmaking needs cold weather, without it ski resorts have invested-in some very expensive lawn sprinklers.
Being so warm, I didn't even consider skiing. I figured even if they were open, the conditions must have been sketchy.
Northern Michigan still could be pumping if they wanted too but idk if they have been
I didn’t even know there was skiing in the Midwest
Drove 6 hours from just outside Detroit to Boyne to ski for the first time and it was 60 out (50 the previous day). When I say it was all ice and dirt I mean it.
Hopefully get a better season for the midwest next year. Hopefully mont ripley and boho get their 200/300 inches of snow next year. (For context, they only got 110 inches this year of which most of it never stuck due to the warmer temps)
I'm from Chicago and winters have been so mild and pathetic with regards to snow. Goodbye skiing lol
El Niño. We’ve lived through several winters like this in my lifetime. The last two winters were above average in terms of snow fall and winter severity.
Yes, people instantly forget that we got absolutely hammered with snow for the previous two years.
Yup people don’t care though it’s all global warming. But last 3 years have been La Niña and this year was El Niño
Where are you from? Planet Zebulon? 55f degrees on Christmas day where I was. Winter was one week long when people joked and said pellston michigan has two seasons: winter and July when it only snows sometimes.
@@JollyLamaCom So what. Somewhere around 1980 it was 62 in Central Minnesota in January and January is colder than December.
Slight correction:
Usually the race to open is between A Basin and Loveland. Not Keystone. A Basin is in the same exact area that Keystone is. Saying these two are racing to first is like arguing that a sprinter's legs count as individuals and whichever leg crossed the finish line first is the winner.
Not everywhere! There’s lots of skiing in New England.
Do sun peaks please
New Mexico skiing really can truly be hit and miss some years; if not snowing then it's probably melting. Great mountains, greatful anyways 😊.
you forgot about Wilmot Mountain Wisconsin
I never even shoveled my sidewalk a single time this winter in SE michigan, pretty depressing
Sorry Midwest. I've noticed even Colorado skiing has been very "spring-like" this year. I went to Beaver Creek last week and it was above freezing the entire week during the days. Looks like even Colorado is shutting down a lot of resorts in early April with only a handful holding on later. Sometimes you have good years and bad years.
Most of the resorts in Summit county other then Breck/Abasin stay open past April anyways.
Most ski resorts in Colorado are on state land, and unless they apply for an extension have a set early closing date sometime in April (besides the notable exceptions like Loveland, Abasin, Ect). Often these resorts have the base to stay open at least through the end of May, but it simply isn't worth the effort since most people are already done with ski season at that point anyway. Telluride is a perfect example, where despite having an okay to decent season, they still are closing on April 4th or whatever the set date is. Yes, this season has been decently warm, but it isn't unusual for the highs to be up to 10 degrees above freezing by the time March rolls around. The area where it has been the most unusually warm has been lower New England/North East, where I live in CT there have been days as high as 65 this March.
@@rundlet1658 I thought most ski resorts were on federal land - 36% of Colorado is federal lands.
@@JasonTaylor-po5xc yeah I think your right that’s what I meant to say - national forest service land
Will Sugarloaf be on the list next year?
We went back this year but still no snowcat ops. We do have footage of the new West Mountain expansion!
Zero snow in Northern Michigan in winter of '81-'82. Only 3 years after the great blizzard of '78.
Only difference is you didn’t have a bunch of woke morons screaming global warming.
In Colorado you’re sick of the snow
At least we have good foundations for downhill buke parks
duude... there is litteraly just pure ice on the mountain and some of the runs were closed in early season
yeah i believe duluth over doubled its total winter snowfall with the one storm last weekend, this year was cooked
Ontario Canada was no different Christmas holidays it was raining on the hills so basically you were skiing on slush and heavy fog
Those runs at highlands are burnt into my brain.
Laughs/cries in mid Atlantic/south pa skiing…
Winter is the fastest-warming season.
Crazy cause we bouta get snow in the east
It would’ve been cool I probably would’ve watched it.