'Snow drought' forces winter sport paradise to bring in extreme curbs on when guests can ski
A city in Washington state has been hit by drastic curbs on skiing after low snowfall and persistently warm temperatures.
Spokane, the state's second-largest city, has five major ski resorts within a three-hour drive, but all of them are having struggles to one extent or another.
Mount Spokane, the closest at just under an hour away, recently announced it would now be closed to the public from Monday through Thursday. Skiers and snowboarders will only be welcome on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
There are 10 inches of snow at the bottom of the mountain, and 28 inches at the summit, according to the website. Generally, a good snow depth for skiing and snowboarding is at least 20 to 30 inches.
When the base depth is greater than 30 inches, obstacles such as rocks, stumps, and grasses are buried and no longer pose a safety risk.
'To best care for our nonprofit mountain and use our resources responsibly, we're adjusting operations so we can keep weekends fun, welcoming, and worth the trip. We'll continue to reevaluate our operating schedule if winter conditions change,' according to a statement from the operators of Mount Spokane.
The vast majority of ski resorts in the United States operate as for-profit entities, making Mount Spokane an outlier in the industry.
Other nonprofit mountains have struggled this season, including Mount Ashland in Oregon, which completely shut down this season in the wake of disappointing snowpack. Bogus Basin in Idaho cut back on operating hours in December and January for the same reason.
Pictured: Sunset at Mount Spokane, where operations have been reduced to Friday, Saturday and Sunday
Pictured: People ski down a trail at Schweitzer Mountain, a resort across the border in Idaho
Other mountains near Spokane have largely remained operational, though all of them have closed a significant number of their trails and chairlifts.
The list includes Silver Mountain Resort, Schweitzer Mountain and Lookout Pass, all in Idaho, along with Washington's 49° North Mountain Resort.
For trails that are open at these locations, many of them are ungroomed.
There are varying levels of difficulty levels with ungroomed terrain, but generally, beginner skiers will struggle on trails where the snow has not been artificially packed down or previously compacted by earlier skiers.
Groomed trails are much easier to ski on because the resort uses tractors and snowmobiles to create a firm, smooth surface with fewer imperfections.
However, when there is not enough snow, it is impossible to use grooming equipment without risking damaging it by hitting rocks or tree roots.
Many resorts have had to choose whether to keep these trails open and ungroomed, or close them entirely.
Meteorologists could not necessarily predict the low snowfall that has now battered the ski industry throughout the entire western United States.
Pictured: Schweitzer Mountain in 2019, when there was much more snowfall than this year
Pictured: A skier jumps off a ramp on an ungroomed trail at Silver Mountain in Idaho
They were aware that the 2025/2026 season was going to be affected by La Niña, a weather pattern in the eastern Pacific Ocean marked by cooler-than-normal surface water temperatures. This usually leads to colder, wetter storms in the Pacific Northwest.
This year's La Niña was significantly weaker than normal, which gave way to high amounts of rain and flooding, instead of snowfall, according to Jeremy Wolf, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service stationed in Spokane.
'That's why right now we're looking at a snowpack that is very much below normal across the state,' Wolf told the Spokesman Review on Wednesday.
Wolf emphasized that there is chance for the snowpack to improve throughout the rest of February and March. Typically, snowpack reaches its peak on April 1.
'But the mountains are so far behind that it would take a complete switch where we’re just getting hit, week after week, for us to have a chance of catching up to normal,' Wolf said.
