STEVENS PASS — He’s having his rock-gouged skis tuned, waxed and heat treated in anticipation of speeding down the mountain.
Temple Voorhees, of Snohomish, is among the skiers, snowboarders and business owners who are stoked to put last season — one of the worst snowfall winters on record — in the past.
This season’s forecast calls for slightly below average snowfall — still plenty to cover the slopes. That’s welcome news to businesses such as those along U.S. 2 that rely on ski traffic.
Natural weather cycles caused last season’s threadbare snowfall and this winter’s expected comeback. But the dismal 2014-15 season provides a glimpse into what’s likely to be a melting future for skiing and snowboarding in Washington.
“Ski areas are the canary in the coal mine for climate change,” said John Gifford, president of the Pacific Northwest Ski Areas Association.
Last season the region’s ski resorts opened late, closed early and had mostly poor conditions in between.
At Stevens Pass, Voorhees said, it seemed that every new snowfall was followed by rain, washing away fresh powder and leaving rocks uncovered.
The 51-year-old started skiing at Stevens when he was 5. On winter mornings, he can often be found in the area’s upper parking lot with fellow skiers, a group that jokingly calls itself the Monday Wrecking Crew.
Conditions last winter were so bad, Voorhees said, it almost felt like there wasn’t a ski season.
Earnings plummeted at resorts across the state. At Stevens Pass, revenues were 43 percent less than the previous season, which was the resort’s most financially successful, spokesman Chris Danforth said.
During an average season, the ski area is open about 130 days and receives 460 inches of snow. Last winter, it was only open 87 days and had 184 inches of snow.
Other ski spots such as the Summit at Snoqualmie, Crystal Mountain Resort and the Mount Baker Ski Area all had similar drops in snowfall, days of operation and revenue.
The last season that bad was 2004-05, when Stevens Pass opened for 46 days and had 204 inches of snow.
Last winter was an aberration due to a natural cycle, said Cliff Mass, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington.
“It’s not the new normal,” for now, he said.
This year, ski areas such as Mount Baker and Crystal Mountain are already open.
Weather models suggest this season’s warmer El Nino pattern will be followed by a colder La Nina cycle, Mass said. Slightly below average snowfall is forecast this winter.
“After last year, average is going to seem great,” said Tiana Anderson, a spokeswoman for Crystal Mountain.
Concerns about the future have prompted many ski areas to start making snow, something virtually unheard of in the region until the past few years. Stevens Pass added its first snow gun this season. But snowmaking is not a fix-all.
It is expensive. And it requires a lot of water and power, and the right temperatures and humidity levels, said Amy Trowbridge, a spokeswoman for the Mount Baker Ski Area, which does not make snow.
The Pacific Northwest usually gets some of the heaviest mountain snowfalls in the country due to air currents from the tropics. That warm, moist air cools as it rises over the mountains here, making rain and snow.
More snow falls at Stevens Pass in an average season than at Aspen, Colorado; Deer Valley, Utah; and Big Sky, Montana, according to onthesnow.com, a website which compiles snow reports from ski areas throughout the country.
Washington has a lot of “warm snow,” said Amy Snover, a climatology professor at the University of Washington and director of the school’s Climate Impacts Group. That means a lot of snow is near the freezing point. If the temperature rises slightly, it will fall as rain, not snow.
Last winter was the state’s second warmest on record. Based on the region’s current trajectory, last year’s aberration will be the average by the 2050s. According to climate models, warming can be expected to continue into the end of the century, she said.
“Eventually,” according to the models’ trend lines, “there will be no ski season. That’s the direction we’re headed,” Snover said.
Of course, there are unknowns. And every model has wiggle room, especially with something as complex as climate. What inevitably happens depends largely on what we as a society choose to do about emissions, she said.
Ski areas are making changes to reduce their environmental footprint. The Summit at Snoqualmie started a recycling program. Used oil from the resort’s vehicles is burned to heat its maintenance shops. Vegetable oil from the kitchen fryers is used to make biodiesel for its shuttle buses.
Stevens Pass has made some of the most far-reaching changes. Every year, it pays tens of thousands of dollars to the Bonneville Environmental Foundation to make up for its own carbon emissions. The money pays for carbon credits to support projects to reduce carbon emissions, such as wind power. It also encourages skiers to buy carbon credits to offset their drive to the ski area.
Stevens was one of four Washington ski areas to sign a letter from industry advocates to President Barack Obama urging strong action at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, which starts Monday.
“Failure to act now on climate is unacceptable, and will result in damage to the environment, tourism and the economy,” the letter says. “We need meaningful action from all, and it is time to act.”
Based on climate model projections, Western Washington’s ski industry is going into a fight for its life. The outcome is largely beyond its control.
Skiing is a huge industry in Washington that drives tourism and employs thousands of workers, albeit in mostly seasonal jobs. In the 2013-14 season, people spent about $317 million at Washington’s 13 resorts, according to a state-commissioned economic study of outdoor recreation.
“Recreational travel is the focus of our whole economy,” said Debbie Copple, director of the Sky Valley Chamber of Commerce.
Businesses along U.S. 2 count on traffic to and from outdoor destinations, such as Stevens Pass.
Monroe Chamber of Commerce Director Una Wirkebau-Hartt is putting up roadside signs to direct skiers and snowboarders passing by to downtown shops and restaurants. She said the city could give businesses a much needed boost if it would invest more money into getting people to stop in Monroe.
“I hate to say it but you have to pimp yourself out, you really do,” Wirkebau-Hartt said.
At the Stevens Pass Snowboard Shop in Gold Bar, they’re grinding edges, waxing and tuning up equipment ahead of opening day on the mountain.
Revenues for the last season were about half of what they normally are. The shop relies on what it earns in the winter to keep it in the black.
“As long as those lifts are running, I’m fine,” said Tony Richards, one of the shop’s owners.
Like many in the industry, Richards got into the business because he loves the sport. For avid skiers and snowboarders like him and Voorhees, it’s hard to imagine a future without snow. Although climate predictions cast doubt on the skiing’s future in Western Washington, Voorhees still hopes that his son Vale will be able to ride at Stevens Pass.
“That seems like wishful thinking, though,” he said.
Dan Catchpole: 425-339-3454; dcatchpole@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @dcatchpole.
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